Dark Souls 2's biggest problems that hold it back from the other 4's heights are these three whoppers:
1. The afformentioned grotty hitboxes
Waaaaaaaaaaaaay more common in this game than others. Why? It's tied to your ADP stat. You need that over 20 (or can maybe fudge it as a caster with enough points in the cast-time stat) like the rest of the games. Most enemies must be hit clean or given HUGE berths like the above or the ogres who have launch SF4 Zangief on Live grab range.
You're basically stuck with a pure point sink to make the game less janky with none of the trade offs of fast/normal/fat roll. Speaking of stats run amok...
2. Fuckin' Soul Memory
So you are in the self-assigned process of Gittin Gud so that means you're coming back from wipes like a champ, perhaps farming up some more stones, arrows, etc. Guess what? You fucked yourself twice! Cuz now, your higher SM will make fewer people to PvE with at bosses you need help with AND the ones you may fight either from invasions or Safe N Sane PvP will have a MUCH higher Soul Level from not dieing as much! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
Plus this makes a community-sourced "PvP range" for endgame that balances enough points for variety of playstyles with not having enough to go "jack and master of all trades" either. That shit is GONE here. Get your SL as high as possible as SM made it impossible to "stay" at an agreed-upon level (then you have Raw on top of that for extreme fuckery).
For the topper, they didn't get rid of it in later expansion packs, they made you wear a ring. Like, what? Is Microsoft circa W8 design this system?
3. AI designed around you getting hits when you're "supposed to", not when you can get away with it.
This is a BIG one I never see anywhere else but I noticed nearly immediately. AI is vehemently fixated on you not getting advantages via clever play. You know the old " dodge/block, 2 or 3 strikes, then get back" loose rule? Here it's enforced by immediate hits yet if you feign the hit or just hang near, they don't swing. Enemies also break old rules such as "enemies have stamina too" so don't expect to wear down or outlast sprinting, swinging beasts (topped off by the shitlords of the Dragon's Aerie who literally WONT stop swinging for the fences if allowed). Weathervane vertical swings that pivot on the downward to behave like a horizontal if you dare step a telegraphed big hit. High armor/high damage giant knight characters everywhere as that's a hard enemy to take (until you go mace/lightning). Gang Bang groups that aggro all at once even if you didn't do something stupid (including one particularly blatant one in the misty forest level where attacking a preta off to the side causes a host of 5 others to rush in from a hundred yards away, yet if you pull those, you get half of them). Even the "Binocular trick" was used against me in the Looking Glass Knight fight (an add's AI wandered off on the other side of the boss but after I cranked back for what shoulda been multiple casts only to have the add use the trick to beat cheeks over to whap me right as the first spell fired off).
Compare this to other Soulsborne games (and the GOOD bosses of DS2) and the best/hardest ones are those that are ravenous, relentless beasts clawing and slashing, or cool, disciplined duelists maneuvering for a clean hit on you. Play smart. Play quick. Play to win. It's an
exceedingly different mindset that colors most of the PvE of this game. Frankly, it was like they were learning what they were driving TO rather than understanding what they had; it's like it took forever to realize "oh, Souls is about danger > difficulty" and get with that.
Don't even get me started on the broken SFX (enemies in jangly plate on a dead run make soft, must-concentrate-to-notice low noise, while your character is all SWOOSH SWOOSH CLANK CLANK with the slightest movement) or the aforementioned and still existant on PC lighting nerf that makes the game much brighter than any other Soulsborne game.
