I kinda enjoy the challenge of fighting multiple enemies, but I agree that it often seems like an excuse for not actually designing new challenges in Dark Souls 2. I can see the reason for doing a lot of guy-with-sword fights, since they constituted a lot of the best boss fight in Dark Souls, but it makes it feel like they cared more about pleasing their audience, than doing what was best for the game as a whole. There is definitely some good creative fights, such as the Demon of Song, The Duke's Dear Freja and the Executioner Chariot. Some less so but still interesting, such as Covetous Demon, Dark Lurker (Though I kinda hate that fight) and Flexile Sentry (at least in new game). Otherwise they are all fairly similar.
Though the weakest part of Dark Souls 2 and the part I like the least, is the bonfire system and the level design. To its credit, the worst part of Dark Souls 2's level design, is still better than the worst Dark Souls had to offer. On the other hand, the best of Dark Souls (Sens Fortress and Undead Burg) is so much better than the best of Dark Souls 2. Except in Iron Keep and a few other locations, the abundance of bonfires in Dark Souls 2 removes most of the tension of its predecessors (especially considering how 'travel' works), whenever I felt just the slightest bit of longing for a bonfire, one would be right around the corner, and most of the time I found it before I was even close to running out of Estus, or other healing items. As to the blocked off road syndrome, I definitely noticed a lot more invisible walls than I've done in the previous games, like the way it is impossible to get unto the stairs in the Covetous Demon's room. I get that they don't want you to go there, as it would make it impossible for the Covetous Demon to reach you, but then they shouldn't have made those stairs in the first place. Another one is the small underwater ledge in Shrine of Amana, where you are unable to lift your feet 10 inches to get to a small columned pathway with a sorcerer on it, and instead you have to go all the way around. And there are plenty of other times where the game makes ridiculous excuses for denying you access to certain areas. It seems to me that previous games paid a lot more attention to such details. Maybe it is simply due to the size Dark Souls 2, and obviously there are far worse offenders when it comes to such bad design, but the attention to such details is one of the reasons I love these games.
It is hard to explain, but when Matthewmatosis says that Dark Souls 2 lacks Soul, that kinda perfectly summarizes my feelings on this game. Demon Souls and Dark Souls felt like they had an underlying vision, Dark Souls 2 feels like an attempt to recreate the previous game, but without that vision.
Don't get me wrong, Dark Souls 2 is a great game and is in a lot of ways superior to its predecessors, in fact it is pretty amazing how well it is done, considering that practically no one who worked on the previous games, where part of the development team for Dark Souls 2. I hope if they are going to be the ones responsible for Dark Souls 3, that they have the confidence to add more Soul to it.
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