PixlBit

i'm checking out your PC review right now.  Well-written.  I'll also be taking the time to check out the rest of plus10damage =)

Thanks! It is quite long though, so I understand if you don't get through it all ;)

I skimmed it, but overall I found it accessible, if a bit challenging to get through. Well done. 

Great review, I had pretty much the exact same thoughts overall, same praises and criticisms that you fleshed out in your review.

I'm enjoying the game mechanically even more on the second playthrough I'm doing now. My first time through with a pure melee build was fine, but now I'm doing a faith build and it's fantastic. First time I've used magic in a Souls game and it's pretty great so far.

Back to the review topics, the geographical inconsistencies get to me all the time when I play. So much of the world feels in-cohesive. There are parts that do make some sense, like when you're in Majula and you see the huge Roman style aqueduct leading towards Drangleic Castle, you can eventually pass right under that aquedect when you're somewhere around the Shaded Woods sections. When you're in Majula you can see Heide's Tower also, and from No Man's Wharf I think you can see Lost Bastille though the cave opening, but other than that most of the game doesn't make any sense.

Once you get up to Drangleic Castle and you look out onto where Majula should be you don't see anything familiar. You don't see the aqeduct, don't see Majula, and even the coastline looks totally different. From Drangleic Castle the ocean looks more like a lake or sea, and there's a ridge line of mountains wrapping around the coast in a way that doesn't make sense. And all of that says nothing about how weird a place like Iron Keep is, which you mentioned in your review. I love the diversity of colors and environments compared to Dark Souls, but the downside is that the world in DS2 isn't cohesive. There's so many places in DS2 where you come to a vista and you think, "This is the perfect place for a rad vista, I should be able to see the rest of the world from here. Or, I should be to see where I previously came from, at least." That doesn't happen in DS2, once you get to Drangleic Castle you're hoping for some rad scenery and it's ugly, unfamiliar, and as uninspiring as can be.

One of the things I constantly think about when I play DS2 is that despite how robust and well crafted it is in many ways, I always get the feeling that they didn't take the world-building nearly as seriously as we did. They obviously worked hard and made a really good game, but when it comes to the lore, to the world-building, and level design they must have not had the time or maybe the vision for what they wanted. Maybe both, development is always way more complex than people usually think and rarely ever has anything to do with laziness. Even the shittiest most broken games have people busting their asses day and night on them. Sometimes when I come across mysteries in DS2 and want to know something about the lore, for the first time in a Souls game I've been telling myself, "Maybe there's actually no lore in this particular situation over here. They didn't flesh it out."

In DS1 there were certainly some inconsistencies and parts that didn't contribute to the greater spider web, but the majority of the lore in Dark Souls 1 was masterfully crafted. Once you started digging into each item description, where you found it, and what the story of the characters and areas might be, you started to realize that you could build epic, dramatic, and even very intimate and personal tales off of the connection of just a few notes. Not just based on pure imagination, but using scraps of evidence to connect ideas and then using your imagination to illustrate what it meant. There was so many times when you could be piecing together theories and think to yourself, "There isn't a single thing about this game that is random once you look closer, these items were exactly where From wanted them, and the descriptions were written in just the perfect way to make my imagination go wild."

There was literally the perfect balance of solid text information, vague text information, and mysterious geographical information. As a loser like me who's obsessed with Dark Souls lore and others like me, we could use the things we found in those three story-telling devices to weave cool theories, and then back them up with evidence that could sometimes be interpreted in a couple different ways.

In DS2 it seems like there's definitely not that perfect balance of devices. There are things that feel too on the nose, there's places that feel like dead-ends, places that simply aren't that interesting, and some of the things that are vague seem like they might be accidental or unfinished. So that's why when I come across some of the things I see in DS2 I'm forced to say to myself now, "Maybe there's just nothing here, maybe they didn't think about it as hard as we do."

I honestly love the story of the game. In some ways it's a simply story. The tale in DS2 is an old fashioned fantasy about an evil queen that weeds her way into power and sews darkness into a kingdom much like the evil queen in Snow White fables does. I believe that the reason I love it is because it's an old fashioned fairy tale, except told through the dark, depressing, and mysterious flavor of the Soul's world. But there's nowhere near as many interesting side-stories. It's not lazy, but it's sloppy.

Oh yeah. I noticed no side quests in the game. I mean, the closest I got was Pate and whats-his-face. Did I miss something?

 And yeah, there are a ton of theories about it, as asrealasitgets says, like it being because you are forgetting things, or because space and time in Dark Souls has always been a bit shakey. I'd be more willing to believe it if the rest of the game weren't so darned lazy.

 And yeah, about the lore. I just didn't find myself interested in it like I did Dark Souls, or even Demon's Souls. It seemed to be rooted a lot deeper, and it felt rewarding to dig it up.

 And yeah, the level design feels closer to Demon's Souls than Dark Souls, which is weird since Demon's Souls was hub based, and not an open world game. Then again, a lot of things seemed to inspired by Demon's Souls in this.

I'm still disappointed this isn't called Darker Souls

It's funny how you say DS2 is the worst in the series, but still better than most other games, and I kind of agree. I still really like Demons Souls, and although Dark Souls was a larger more realised world, I feel like Dark Souls 2 moved too far away from the horror themes of the first 2, although the game is gorgeous on PC, it reminded me of Zelda more than Dark Souls. Majula looks like Hyrule field. Forest of Giants looks and feels like the lost woods and the Forest Temple from Ocarina of Time. Hades Flame Tower looked like the Temple of Time and No Mans Warf reminded me of two areas from Ocarina, the desert and gerudo warriors and the pirate ship resembles the pirate ship at the bottom of the well dungeon in Kakariko village. Actually, Majula has a deep well in it, that I haven't explored yet.

The inconsistency of area connections is a large subject for debate on many forums and blogs, and interesting theories is that this design was intentional because there seems to be a recurring them in the narrative about forgetting your purpose and other NPCs suffer from this as well. Thus, blurring the transition between the areas is becuase your character is forgetting their purpose as you play. This is just speculation, but a popular one is that the disconnected level design was intentional, which I'm agreeing with.  But then again I think this is Hyrule? 

I'm playing offline on PC becuase I'm stupid and I just made it to the Bastille, or wherever that ghost ship drops you off. Also a melee class. And yes I will die a lot.

I can't connect on PC. At all. Haven't been able to since day one, although I think that's my stupid college internet. Also, you're about to fight the toughest fight in the game. Good luck :p

 I would be more inclined to agree with those theories if it weren't for the laziness seeping in elsewhere. The NPC's are mostly meh, and don't really do anything with tthe exception of pate and creighton. There are also no side quests in this one, which is also thoroughly disappointing.

I don't disagree with your points. And I don't accept all the wierd theories about the games meaning, but the subject of the "disconnected" areas is a constant topic for discussion. Was it or was it not intentional? It is a possibility that it was poor design, or a throwback to Demons Souls, but then joined together after the fact. If you look at the menu to transport to other areas, it sure looks like the level menus from Demons souls. Remember, this game does not look the way it was demoed, so who knows what was changed or edited out for framerate issues. One theory I like is that the eagle that drops off that silver knight boss dude was originally a crow, but then later turned into an eagle for some reason? Hmm... or is it in fact a crow?

Well then, I just put this one on my wishlist and I can't wait to play it once I have the urge to do so (and it's on a considerable price). I guess the new problem now comes with getting a PS3 for Demon's and the first Dark Souls.