User blog comment:Hereticalthoughts/Elitism Within the Souls Community/@comment-16047389-20140820173000

The Souls series, to me, encompasses Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, and the upcoming Bloodborne game. I group them not based upon the title, but by the gameplay style, the team behind them, and the general style of design. Dark Souls 2 is not a "fake" Souls game, but it is different in that Hidetaka Miyazaki was not really working on it. Dark Souls 2 did suffer from this, in that the story, lore, and atmosphere were not nearly as good. It did excel in other aspects, and the DLC has shown much promise in returning to some styles that the original Dark Souls was famous for, but ultimately the two games are not the same. Miyazaki never actually wanted to do a direct sequel of either Dark Souls or Demon's Souls, and I can understand why, but I'm still glad they made Dark Souls 2, even if it came across as a tad lackluster.

As for Dragon's Dogma, it does come across as a more casual style game, but that's not a bad thing in itself. Different games appeal to different communities, and since I don't play Dragon's Dogma (I've only played it long enough to decide that I didn't want to keep playing it regularly), I don't pretend to understand it or compare it to any other game I've played.