I felt like making a twinblade character and then only DS2 is an option, so away I went. As fortune would have it, a friend already had the game but bounced off it some time ago, so I could combine making my character with giving him a guided tour. So far we've done Lost Bastille, Huntsman's Copse and just entering Tseldora proper on the respective routes. With a twinblade, I feel that it's not really useful to dodge around as each hit is so weak. It's better to poise through damage and just get those hits in. At least until I get the Red Iron Twinblade, but that's actually way after half the game. After playing a lot of Remastered, I tried to do fast rolls here too, but if you want any kind of armor you're just not going to come in below the limit. In fact, I'll probably need to respec once I get the next weapon since I'm wasting too much on equip load now.
It took some time to setup as we both needed the special ring for easier coop. It's quite unreliable without that. But now we're making good progress. As usual, the game is much, much less oppressive once you have another player with you. Even though I know most of the game fairly well, there's still some really long stretches and the enemies are even more likely to chase you forever. I still like it though, and the build variety is just through the roof.
The only issue is since it's been a couple of years, I'm confusing what I remember of DS2 and SOTFS, so there's quite a few surprises to be found.