So I finally managed to find the time to finish this, if anyone cares what my final opinion is:
TL;DR
6.5/10, 7.5/10 if including the DLC.
The game is an extreme disapointment, from the clunky, slow combat to the uninspired and more often than not just plain mediocre level design.
Two DLCs, Sunken King and Iron King are what I expected from a game such as this, they're the only parts that made me feel like I was playing a Souls game of the quality I'm used to. In fact, the difference between those and the main game is so staggering that I couldn't even consider them the same game if it weren't for the poor combat and some clown cars issues that were unfortunately carried over.
The level design is miles ahead of what's in the rest of the game and the bosses can actually be considered as such. Brume Tower in particular had very good level design and was quite enjoyable, much, much more than anything else in the game, along with Shulva. I find it hard to believe the same people who made the rest of the game also made the DLCs.
Maybe they were given the task of making these "challenge rooms" for the DLC that are a complete and absolute disgrace? Because just when I thought the game was giving me some good times with the DLCs, I come upon this stupid cave filled with enemies shooting and assaulting me from everywhere just to end with the worst bosses ever, the fucking gank squad and the smelter demon reskinned. Seriously the gank squad. It is pure garbage, as simple as that. A complete, absolute and utter piece of shit of a "boss". I don't know exactly how I managed to find the motivation to keep trying, but I finally won the fight by cheesing them the whole time (it is actually the only way to win), making them fall to the level below to chase me and hitting them once while they fall, repeating this process for 5 minutes. Such good design, just exactly what I expected from them.
The blue smelter demon and the reskinned Aava can rot waiting for me though, they will remain the only bosses I have not defeated in the franchise, just because I can't be arsed to go through all of the preceding bullshit, and they're reskins anyways.
The brilliant decision of placing an actual enjoyable boss fight (Sir Alonne) behind a pile of vomit of an area full of gangbangs and proyectile shit has to be mentioned too. It's Dark Souls 2 after all I guess.
The rest of the game though? I don't even know where to begin. I won't reiterate how the combat is a severe downgrade or how the game basically forces you to make 1-2 attacks tops in every goddamn fight because the stamina bar is a complete joke. In a game where most encounters are based around throwing packs of enemies with infinite stamina and stability at the player, they decide to nerf endurance to the point where it's basically impossible to attack more than 2 or three times without being severely punished in any boss or mob fight.
Length. I had read everywhere that the game was huge and bigger than the previous games by far. I didn't know 80% of this "hugeness" was filler rubbish in the form of irrelevant, small zones (one corridor small in some cases like the black gulch or just empty spaces with random chests and enemies like the shaded ruins) with complete lack of art direction or any sign of thoughtful, dedicated level design and filled with pointless, baby-mode "bosses" like the skeletons, the two mages or the scorpion chick. The whole thing feels like a level select, there's no cohesion at all and the transitions from place to place make absolutely no sense.
I guess people just prefer a lot of mediocre stuff than some incredibly good stuff. Well "some" anyways; the other games weren't short on content so this argument is just bad. The fact that there are people who actually prefer this amount of uninspired mediocrity to the superbely crafted worlds of Demon, Dark 1 and Bloodborne is just an unfathomable thing to me. It took me 60 hours with 99% completed anyways, and it took me 50 in Demon's and 70 in Dark, so it isn't that much bigger. It certainly isn't better because it might have a few more zones anyways.
I don't want to enter rage mode but oh my fucking merciful god, the shrine of amana. When I thought nothing could top the "challenge room" from the Iron King DLC, I found the worst mandatory area ever created for these games. Constant homing magic shit from everywhere, falling to deep water, invisible, everchasing frogfuckers, random giant knights, a cyclops, a fucking dragonrider, groups of gangster clerics with a healing bitch... Go **** yourselves seriously. I have never been more tempted to just drop the fcking game for good. Disgusting.
Now I wanted to like some locations like Lost Bastille, Earthen Peak or Iron Keep, they brought a glimpse of Souls goodness, but the fucking clown car approach to every encounter in this game just hinders any possible enjoyement. Seriously, get out of here with those alonne knights that aggro even from behind walls to form a group of 4 katana spamming knights and two archers shooting from three different directions, just fuck off. When the most enjoyable area in your game is the Blighttown/Defilement clone you know you fucked it up.
But there's tons of different enemies and zones! Variety!! Yeah, tons of uninspired areas that you can clear in 15 minutes filled with enemies with NES-era AI. Honestly, I'd rather have one latria than five tseldoras or undead crypts.
One shielded undead from the Undead Burg in DaS1 has better AI and is more fun to fight than most enemies in this game including some bosses, and I'm totally serious. Why have hundred of enemy types when their AI is so bad and basic that you have to throw groups of them at the same time to make it challenging?
Some people say Dark Souls relies too much on backstabs? I swear to god backstabbing a normal undead there is miles harder than doing so in... just about every goddamn enemy in this game? You just have to walk -not even roll- behind and backstab the hell out of that miserable AI. It's the best strategy for every enemy that can be backstabbed, including all of the DLC humanoid enemies and like 85% of the enemies in the main game. The AI is embarrassing. But hey, there's a lot of different looking enemies!
The fights in this game are just not fun, they're an absolute chore, no matter what you do you will most likely aggro 3 enemies at the same time (because fighting one alone clearly shows how poor their AI is, they're completely worthless unless they're with their shitty buddies or they're a giant. Oh wait, giants like to go around with their friends too), and these enemies are most of the times unstoppable knights with infinite stamina helped by proyectile throwing shitlords. Jesus christ, seriously.
The bosses are a complete joke. They're not only incredibly, insultingly easy (the only one I had "trouble" with, trouble meaning I needed more than three tries, was the medusa woman, and that's because I fought with the poison pool, so go figure), they're also extremely forgettable and awfully boring from an artistic point of view. Most of them are just big knights with a sword, the only one I liked was the frog-zombie.
Seriously, they're that bad. I can't understand how and why they're so incredibly easy and basic. The bosses in the DLC are actual bosses, the rest are undescriptably bad in every possible way. The last boss haha oh my god, she was way easier than most mini-bosses from the other games and even in this one. What a total joke.
The graphics are quite good though, too bad the art direction is so bad they can barely shine. You can find gorgeous places like the dragon shrine or majula and then completely dreadful ones like the shaded ruins, tseldora or aldia's keep.
So all in all, undoubtedly the worst Souls game by one thousand miles. I always strongly recommend Dark Souls to people who like videogames but haven't played it, and I would absolutely not recommend Dark Souls II to anyone, including fans of the other games. Only the DLC if it was a standalone downloadable game. It really is a shame, and the fact that "critics" put this above the rest is sickening, what a sad, sad scene. I thought the GTA IV situation of it being above GTA V for critics couldn't be topped, but this being higher in metacritic than Dark Souls or Demon's Souls makes me want to never again trust a review from someone who earns money for it and just read what users think.
PD: It's the only game where I was so mad at the cheap bullshit -in this case the incredibly stupid Lautrec of the game, a cleric woman with 5000000HP who spams a oneshotting miracle- that I said fuck everything in this crap game:
Not that I cared anyways because the NPCs are as numerous as they are uninteresting and trivial. I only liked the cat.
<Original OT>
So I decided to finally play Dark Souls II after the Steam lunar sale. I know having finished The Old Hunters a week before probably wasn't a good idea, but I didn't know how bad of an idea it ended up being.
I don't even know where to begin. I jumped in with expectations of a Dark Souls carbon copy with new content that isn't as tight as it was in the original, going by the opinions I had read. I thought that maybe some criticism was too harsh; more Dark Souls can't be a bad thing right? Well, if only it was indeed more Dark Souls and not a different thing altogether...
Let's begin with the controls. What the hell? No really, what the hell is this? Why is the character moving like he's shitting on his pants? Why is every single animation worse than anything seen in previous games and cringeworthy for the most part? Why does the combat feel so clunky? Did they think it was a good idea to make the character move faster and sprint being instant but every goddamn swipe of any weapon have the recovery time of the Logarius Wheel R2? Seriously, why I can't quickly roll away after attacking? What is this absurd mechanic? Not every weapon needs such an enormous punish window. So I guess because I turn into a stone figure with every single attack I make, I am supposed to just wait for the one attack of the enemy that doesn't have a quick follow up that can fuck me after I attack? Because most enemies have inconsistent hit reaction so you can't know if your attack is gonna stop theirs or not.
At first I blamed Bloodborne for getting me used to a different kind of combat. Maybe I was playing it wrong and I didn't remember Demon's or Dark all that well and that was the reason I was sucking so much. But after many infuriating deaths (more of those than in any of the previous games combined) I decided to install Dark Souls and see if I was going crazy and Dark Souls II didn't play like shit compared to DaS. I booted it up and I just had to go through the Undead Burg to confirm that I wasn't going crazy and DaS II does indeed play like shit in comparison.
Hey guys, let's make player movement faster but combat infinitely slower, unresponsive, clunkier and more awkward to the point that you have to unlearn everything you've learned in the other three games to master the new mechanics of the shiny newLords of the Fallen Dark Souls II. While we're at it let's remake all weapon animations and make them shittier and lack any weight or satisfying feeling of any kind, sounds like a good idea. Oh, and let's add delays and input lag feeling everywhere we can, including picking items and talking with NPCs. Gotta be consistent with the 30 seconds it takes to cast a healing miracle and drink a slow-healing estus flask.
But if the fact that the gameplay is substantially different -for the absolute worse- was not enough, the combat encounters and level design are at an all time low for the franchise.
- Guys, the other games were known for having a perfect difficulty balance, we need to be on the same level.
- I don't think our team will be able to do that.
- I know, that's why I came up with an easy method to not only rival the other team's efforts but surpass the level of difficulty they achieved: let's take control away from the players by downgrading the combat and let's throw them packs of enemies at the same time after every corner.
- That's genius, team A games will be like children games!
(Because yes, this game was CLEARLY not made by the same people that made DeS, DaS and Bloodborne, and if From or someone has came out calling bullshit on that claim, I call bullshit on their bullshit claim. There is absolutely no way in hell this is the same people and it shows in every single aspect of the game).
What about the levels? First we have the Boletarian Palace/Undead Burg clone that is completely unremarkable except for the fact that it's the first place where you'll get to know the all-new feature of "out of nowhere gang bangs". The NPC told me I should be careful when going through this door, what could he mean? Oh I see, door closed, 5 guys incoming. There's a cool looking giant sword hanging here with an item at the end, let's get there for a nice moment of relief under the beautiful sunlight. What's that? Oh, 4 guys coming out of nowhere trapped me in this narrow corridor and I've got a guaranteed visit to the latest bonfire because my stamina bar only blocks 3 attacks while theirs is always full and the only escape route is the 50 meters-deep drop. How cool.
Alright so I found a mini-boss up here, let's try to fight him like I did with the lance knight in Demon's Souls, the black knight in Dark and the executioner in Bloodborne. Those were hard and not meant for early levels but with enough skill you could get the kill. Let's go for it! First attack, I dodge and he IMPALES ME DESPITE MY CHARACTER BEING 5 METERS AWAY FROM HIS SWORD, talk about bullshit hitboxes jesus christ. Never, and I mean never before have I experienced such ridiculous hitbox bs in the entirety of the previous games. Not even trying him again until I can oneshot him.
Anyways after I manage to get through the amount of bullshit moments of the zone, I get to the boss. The Last Giant. Damn, sounds cool. Well too bad, the pigs in Majula (what was that, by the way?) were harder than this complete joke of a "boss". People say Bloodborne is easy? The two wolves in the main bridge before Cleric Beast are definitely harder to beat than The Last Giant and the Dragonrider or whatever his name is combined. I've only faced these two but they are without a doubt the worst bosses in the entire franchise by far. Terrible is an understatement. The Dragonrider is an offense, the previous zone is somewhat hard then you get to a boss that doesn't even hit you, is terribly uninspired and easier than the knights you've had to beat before him. Then after you kill this excuse for a boss, the white knights start attacking you, so that means you have to deal with the big knights and the awkward, unpredictable and stupid attacks of the white ones at the same time, which is a considerably harder feat than beating the boss. Top-notch design right there.
But the jewel in the crown is of course the No-man's Wharf, that random dockyard with zombie vikings, a fire shaman and four-legged... creatures? This is THE worst level I've ever played in these games. Absolutely dreadful. Pack after pack of zombies, enemies with inconsistent, cheap attack patterns that magically slide towards your position in order to hit you or ignore your hits when most convenient, every kind of projectile bullshit being endlessly thrown at you and all in all a generally awful experience that is the very definition of cheap difficulty, something the Souls games are known for NOT being. Lots of dead ends everywhere on the levels including boss zones, underwhelming "secret" rooms with just a few worthless items and a random skeleton copy-pasted from Nito's graveyard, etc.
I've given up today after dying for the 15# time in this place and I know I will keep playing and will beat the game because the formula is good -due to inheritance and not by own merits-, I might end up liking it for what it is once I get used to the Gameloft knock off-like downgrade in mechanics and gameplay, but this is leagues behind Dark Souls in every aspect except graphics, the perfect definition would be that it's an indie game that tries to be Dark Souls or a game made with effort by people who love the franchise but just can't be on the same level because of numerous reasons, which should be fine if that were what it is, but it's not, it's the official sequel of Dark Souls. I don't know what was going on with From / Bandai-Namco but this mess is unbelievable. If the best people were working on Bloodborne, just wait and don't tarnish the name with a rushed, poor-thought product and just wait for everybody to be available. You can't just outsource the shit out of it and expect good results. I can't believe this game has better critics than Demon's or Dark Souls. Goes to show how laughable the journalism scene is at the moment.
Most of these complaints shown in-game: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=195286052&postcount=427
Video comparison of weapon animations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7rFXpdNYgM
TL;DR
6.5/10, 7.5/10 if including the DLC.
The game is an extreme disapointment, from the clunky, slow combat to the uninspired and more often than not just plain mediocre level design.
Two DLCs, Sunken King and Iron King are what I expected from a game such as this, they're the only parts that made me feel like I was playing a Souls game of the quality I'm used to. In fact, the difference between those and the main game is so staggering that I couldn't even consider them the same game if it weren't for the poor combat and some clown cars issues that were unfortunately carried over.
The level design is miles ahead of what's in the rest of the game and the bosses can actually be considered as such. Brume Tower in particular had very good level design and was quite enjoyable, much, much more than anything else in the game, along with Shulva. I find it hard to believe the same people who made the rest of the game also made the DLCs.
Maybe they were given the task of making these "challenge rooms" for the DLC that are a complete and absolute disgrace? Because just when I thought the game was giving me some good times with the DLCs, I come upon this stupid cave filled with enemies shooting and assaulting me from everywhere just to end with the worst bosses ever, the fucking gank squad and the smelter demon reskinned. Seriously the gank squad. It is pure garbage, as simple as that. A complete, absolute and utter piece of shit of a "boss". I don't know exactly how I managed to find the motivation to keep trying, but I finally won the fight by cheesing them the whole time (it is actually the only way to win), making them fall to the level below to chase me and hitting them once while they fall, repeating this process for 5 minutes. Such good design, just exactly what I expected from them.
The blue smelter demon and the reskinned Aava can rot waiting for me though, they will remain the only bosses I have not defeated in the franchise, just because I can't be arsed to go through all of the preceding bullshit, and they're reskins anyways.
The brilliant decision of placing an actual enjoyable boss fight (Sir Alonne) behind a pile of vomit of an area full of gangbangs and proyectile shit has to be mentioned too. It's Dark Souls 2 after all I guess.
The rest of the game though? I don't even know where to begin. I won't reiterate how the combat is a severe downgrade or how the game basically forces you to make 1-2 attacks tops in every goddamn fight because the stamina bar is a complete joke. In a game where most encounters are based around throwing packs of enemies with infinite stamina and stability at the player, they decide to nerf endurance to the point where it's basically impossible to attack more than 2 or three times without being severely punished in any boss or mob fight.
Length. I had read everywhere that the game was huge and bigger than the previous games by far. I didn't know 80% of this "hugeness" was filler rubbish in the form of irrelevant, small zones (one corridor small in some cases like the black gulch or just empty spaces with random chests and enemies like the shaded ruins) with complete lack of art direction or any sign of thoughtful, dedicated level design and filled with pointless, baby-mode "bosses" like the skeletons, the two mages or the scorpion chick. The whole thing feels like a level select, there's no cohesion at all and the transitions from place to place make absolutely no sense.
I guess people just prefer a lot of mediocre stuff than some incredibly good stuff. Well "some" anyways; the other games weren't short on content so this argument is just bad. The fact that there are people who actually prefer this amount of uninspired mediocrity to the superbely crafted worlds of Demon, Dark 1 and Bloodborne is just an unfathomable thing to me. It took me 60 hours with 99% completed anyways, and it took me 50 in Demon's and 70 in Dark, so it isn't that much bigger. It certainly isn't better because it might have a few more zones anyways.
I don't want to enter rage mode but oh my fucking merciful god, the shrine of amana. When I thought nothing could top the "challenge room" from the Iron King DLC, I found the worst mandatory area ever created for these games. Constant homing magic shit from everywhere, falling to deep water, invisible, everchasing frogfuckers, random giant knights, a cyclops, a fucking dragonrider, groups of gangster clerics with a healing bitch... Go **** yourselves seriously. I have never been more tempted to just drop the fcking game for good. Disgusting.
Now I wanted to like some locations like Lost Bastille, Earthen Peak or Iron Keep, they brought a glimpse of Souls goodness, but the fucking clown car approach to every encounter in this game just hinders any possible enjoyement. Seriously, get out of here with those alonne knights that aggro even from behind walls to form a group of 4 katana spamming knights and two archers shooting from three different directions, just fuck off. When the most enjoyable area in your game is the Blighttown/Defilement clone you know you fucked it up.
The definition of "hard" for From Software's Team B, up here.
But there's tons of different enemies and zones! Variety!! Yeah, tons of uninspired areas that you can clear in 15 minutes filled with enemies with NES-era AI. Honestly, I'd rather have one latria than five tseldoras or undead crypts.
One shielded undead from the Undead Burg in DaS1 has better AI and is more fun to fight than most enemies in this game including some bosses, and I'm totally serious. Why have hundred of enemy types when their AI is so bad and basic that you have to throw groups of them at the same time to make it challenging?
Some people say Dark Souls relies too much on backstabs? I swear to god backstabbing a normal undead there is miles harder than doing so in... just about every goddamn enemy in this game? You just have to walk -not even roll- behind and backstab the hell out of that miserable AI. It's the best strategy for every enemy that can be backstabbed, including all of the DLC humanoid enemies and like 85% of the enemies in the main game. The AI is embarrassing. But hey, there's a lot of different looking enemies!
The fights in this game are just not fun, they're an absolute chore, no matter what you do you will most likely aggro 3 enemies at the same time (because fighting one alone clearly shows how poor their AI is, they're completely worthless unless they're with their shitty buddies or they're a giant. Oh wait, giants like to go around with their friends too), and these enemies are most of the times unstoppable knights with infinite stamina helped by proyectile throwing shitlords. Jesus christ, seriously.
The bosses are a complete joke. They're not only incredibly, insultingly easy (the only one I had "trouble" with, trouble meaning I needed more than three tries, was the medusa woman, and that's because I fought with the poison pool, so go figure), they're also extremely forgettable and awfully boring from an artistic point of view. Most of them are just big knights with a sword, the only one I liked was the frog-zombie.
Seriously, they're that bad. I can't understand how and why they're so incredibly easy and basic. The bosses in the DLC are actual bosses, the rest are undescriptably bad in every possible way. The last boss haha oh my god, she was way easier than most mini-bosses from the other games and even in this one. What a total joke.
The graphics are quite good though, too bad the art direction is so bad they can barely shine. You can find gorgeous places like the dragon shrine or majula and then completely dreadful ones like the shaded ruins, tseldora or aldia's keep.
So all in all, undoubtedly the worst Souls game by one thousand miles. I always strongly recommend Dark Souls to people who like videogames but haven't played it, and I would absolutely not recommend Dark Souls II to anyone, including fans of the other games. Only the DLC if it was a standalone downloadable game. It really is a shame, and the fact that "critics" put this above the rest is sickening, what a sad, sad scene. I thought the GTA IV situation of it being above GTA V for critics couldn't be topped, but this being higher in metacritic than Dark Souls or Demon's Souls makes me want to never again trust a review from someone who earns money for it and just read what users think.
PD: It's the only game where I was so mad at the cheap bullshit -in this case the incredibly stupid Lautrec of the game, a cleric woman with 5000000HP who spams a oneshotting miracle- that I said fuck everything in this crap game:
Not that I cared anyways because the NPCs are as numerous as they are uninteresting and trivial. I only liked the cat.
<Original OT>
So I decided to finally play Dark Souls II after the Steam lunar sale. I know having finished The Old Hunters a week before probably wasn't a good idea, but I didn't know how bad of an idea it ended up being.
I don't even know where to begin. I jumped in with expectations of a Dark Souls carbon copy with new content that isn't as tight as it was in the original, going by the opinions I had read. I thought that maybe some criticism was too harsh; more Dark Souls can't be a bad thing right? Well, if only it was indeed more Dark Souls and not a different thing altogether...
Let's begin with the controls. What the hell? No really, what the hell is this? Why is the character moving like he's shitting on his pants? Why is every single animation worse than anything seen in previous games and cringeworthy for the most part? Why does the combat feel so clunky? Did they think it was a good idea to make the character move faster and sprint being instant but every goddamn swipe of any weapon have the recovery time of the Logarius Wheel R2? Seriously, why I can't quickly roll away after attacking? What is this absurd mechanic? Not every weapon needs such an enormous punish window. So I guess because I turn into a stone figure with every single attack I make, I am supposed to just wait for the one attack of the enemy that doesn't have a quick follow up that can fuck me after I attack? Because most enemies have inconsistent hit reaction so you can't know if your attack is gonna stop theirs or not.
At first I blamed Bloodborne for getting me used to a different kind of combat. Maybe I was playing it wrong and I didn't remember Demon's or Dark all that well and that was the reason I was sucking so much. But after many infuriating deaths (more of those than in any of the previous games combined) I decided to install Dark Souls and see if I was going crazy and Dark Souls II didn't play like shit compared to DaS. I booted it up and I just had to go through the Undead Burg to confirm that I wasn't going crazy and DaS II does indeed play like shit in comparison.
Hey guys, let's make player movement faster but combat infinitely slower, unresponsive, clunkier and more awkward to the point that you have to unlearn everything you've learned in the other three games to master the new mechanics of the shiny new
But if the fact that the gameplay is substantially different -for the absolute worse- was not enough, the combat encounters and level design are at an all time low for the franchise.
- Guys, the other games were known for having a perfect difficulty balance, we need to be on the same level.
- I don't think our team will be able to do that.
- I know, that's why I came up with an easy method to not only rival the other team's efforts but surpass the level of difficulty they achieved: let's take control away from the players by downgrading the combat and let's throw them packs of enemies at the same time after every corner.
- That's genius, team A games will be like children games!
(Because yes, this game was CLEARLY not made by the same people that made DeS, DaS and Bloodborne, and if From or someone has came out calling bullshit on that claim, I call bullshit on their bullshit claim. There is absolutely no way in hell this is the same people and it shows in every single aspect of the game).
What about the levels? First we have the Boletarian Palace/Undead Burg clone that is completely unremarkable except for the fact that it's the first place where you'll get to know the all-new feature of "out of nowhere gang bangs". The NPC told me I should be careful when going through this door, what could he mean? Oh I see, door closed, 5 guys incoming. There's a cool looking giant sword hanging here with an item at the end, let's get there for a nice moment of relief under the beautiful sunlight. What's that? Oh, 4 guys coming out of nowhere trapped me in this narrow corridor and I've got a guaranteed visit to the latest bonfire because my stamina bar only blocks 3 attacks while theirs is always full and the only escape route is the 50 meters-deep drop. How cool.
Alright so I found a mini-boss up here, let's try to fight him like I did with the lance knight in Demon's Souls, the black knight in Dark and the executioner in Bloodborne. Those were hard and not meant for early levels but with enough skill you could get the kill. Let's go for it! First attack, I dodge and he IMPALES ME DESPITE MY CHARACTER BEING 5 METERS AWAY FROM HIS SWORD, talk about bullshit hitboxes jesus christ. Never, and I mean never before have I experienced such ridiculous hitbox bs in the entirety of the previous games. Not even trying him again until I can oneshot him.
Anyways after I manage to get through the amount of bullshit moments of the zone, I get to the boss. The Last Giant. Damn, sounds cool. Well too bad, the pigs in Majula (what was that, by the way?) were harder than this complete joke of a "boss". People say Bloodborne is easy? The two wolves in the main bridge before Cleric Beast are definitely harder to beat than The Last Giant and the Dragonrider or whatever his name is combined. I've only faced these two but they are without a doubt the worst bosses in the entire franchise by far. Terrible is an understatement. The Dragonrider is an offense, the previous zone is somewhat hard then you get to a boss that doesn't even hit you, is terribly uninspired and easier than the knights you've had to beat before him. Then after you kill this excuse for a boss, the white knights start attacking you, so that means you have to deal with the big knights and the awkward, unpredictable and stupid attacks of the white ones at the same time, which is a considerably harder feat than beating the boss. Top-notch design right there.
But the jewel in the crown is of course the No-man's Wharf, that random dockyard with zombie vikings, a fire shaman and four-legged... creatures? This is THE worst level I've ever played in these games. Absolutely dreadful. Pack after pack of zombies, enemies with inconsistent, cheap attack patterns that magically slide towards your position in order to hit you or ignore your hits when most convenient, every kind of projectile bullshit being endlessly thrown at you and all in all a generally awful experience that is the very definition of cheap difficulty, something the Souls games are known for NOT being. Lots of dead ends everywhere on the levels including boss zones, underwhelming "secret" rooms with just a few worthless items and a random skeleton copy-pasted from Nito's graveyard, etc.
I've given up today after dying for the 15# time in this place and I know I will keep playing and will beat the game because the formula is good -due to inheritance and not by own merits-, I might end up liking it for what it is once I get used to the Gameloft knock off-like downgrade in mechanics and gameplay, but this is leagues behind Dark Souls in every aspect except graphics, the perfect definition would be that it's an indie game that tries to be Dark Souls or a game made with effort by people who love the franchise but just can't be on the same level because of numerous reasons, which should be fine if that were what it is, but it's not, it's the official sequel of Dark Souls. I don't know what was going on with From / Bandai-Namco but this mess is unbelievable. If the best people were working on Bloodborne, just wait and don't tarnish the name with a rushed, poor-thought product and just wait for everybody to be available. You can't just outsource the shit out of it and expect good results. I can't believe this game has better critics than Demon's or Dark Souls. Goes to show how laughable the journalism scene is at the moment.
Most of these complaints shown in-game: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=195286052&postcount=427
Video comparison of weapon animations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7rFXpdNYgM
