I disliked it quite a bit. I was looking forward to fighting Aldrich, the big pile of ooze from the opening cinematic, and got a recycled reference to Dark Souls 1 instead.

I dont remember anything about Dark Souls and didn't like Dark Souls 2 so never finished it so none of the references bother me. Other than some familiar items and a few characters I haven't noticed much.

@gunslingerpanda: Really? I just beat him today and I thought that this was one of the cooler twists in the game; seeing the crown and reading "Devourer of Gods" next to his name. When I saw him in the intro, I figured he'd be a puzzle boss or Phalanx-like, but he turned out to be my favorite spell-caster boss in the entire series. I also fail to see how this is a recycled reference.

Edited.

I'm pretty sure it's called lore and continuity. It's part of the narrative. I've never heard that sort of stuff referred to as "fan service". It's like reading an American History book and complaining that it's full of George Washington fan service.

@golguin:

Plus it's mentioned numerous times that time, space and reality are fucked up in the Dark Souls world. Things happening at the same time, people appearing in the past or the future. Plus, countless Gods and other powerful beings fucking with everything, unleashing shit on accident or on purpose, corrupting entire locations.

The whole series in built on things being out of place or appearing where they shouldn't.

I thought the stuff surrounding Aldrich wound up making me giddy and I really, really hope there's some pay-off. I thought the build-up was well-executed, as well. "Hey, this kinda looks like ... Are they doing this? <Title Card> "OH, MY!"

And it was brief, which is how they've played most of this.

It's more about something being lost in a perceived attempt to make fans happy by giving them more of what they know.

It would be more like reading a book about American History and finding early paragraphs on George Washington repeated during the chapter on Vietnam.

But I think they can do it well, if they justify it within the universe. The disconnect for me is that Dark Souls II did this really well while being vague, setting a precedent for them not throwing in overt references.

At the same time, this is kinda how sagas try to wrap themselves up. The Godfather did it, Mass Effect did it, Metal Gear Solid did it. Boy, did Metal Gear do it.

Dark Souls 2 implied that pretty much everything from the first game has been completely forgotten due to the passage of time, and it's also pretty much explicitly stated that the whole cycle of kindling the first flame has happened over and over. With all of that being stated, the fact that the buildings and even CORPSES of people from Dark Souls 1 are still around is miraculous. I really hope it's explained somehow, otherwise it definitely will feel like fanservice just for the sake of fanservice. I do like the callbacks though, don't get me wrong.