I know of Sekiro and Khazan so far - Sekiro via its reflections and Inner variants, and Khazan via just repeating the boss fight where you fought them initially. I quite like both and think it’s cool to re-experience the fights if you feel like it. Which other soulslikes do that?
Man, Peak Souls 2 really deserving of its name, it seems. Really gotta get around to playing it. Can’t be as bad as people claim it is
The thing with sequels, they really tried a lot of things in DS2. some needed more work, some got discarded and some came back.
I find funny that the torch should play a bigger factor in DS2 but got discarded and the mechanic only came back in Elden Ring where the fire motiff is not relevant like it’s to Dark Souls.
There are some things “wrong” with it, like with all of them, but I love it. Especially the DLCs.
The DLC areas are all incredible and unique, plus they make the biggest soul even bigger by a factor of two. It’s insane how much they add to the game.
I feel that DS2 is the most consistent of all 3 games. The game is an average 8 all the way through. While DS1 and DS3 have areas where the game hits an amazing 10, they also have areas where the game feels unfinished and the quality noticeably drops hard (after Anor Londo, after Abyss Sentinels), where it can feel you’re playing some weird AA shovelware project. BB is similar to DS2 in this aspect, but the whole game is at least a solid 9. Sekiro is the same again, the whole game is at least a solid 9.