Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-25825126-20150729214135/@comment-4511886-20150730120459

Haven't played BB, but I'd say it goes DaSII-DeS-DaS for me.

DaSII was the first Souls game I actually beat, and for good reason. Strength is absolutely broken with the damage you can deal. On top of that, there's the Ring of Life Protection which nullifies death at the cost of 3,000 souls. You pretty much need a Great Hammer, an Ultra Greatsword and Ring of Life Protection and you're set for the rest of the game.

DeS is, to me, easier than DaS simply because you just have to get through the early game and then you start snowballing. You can get a fully upgraded weapon that has extremely high AR by farming for a while. Not to mention that you can get the Magic Sword Makoto, or even the Crescent Falchion, early on and already have extremely high damage for practically no stat investment. (12/13 for over 200 AR, not counting upgrades) A lot of bosses also have some kind of gimick to beat them. For example, saving Biorr for Penetrator, using the Thief Ring against Old Hero, staying back and using a (cross)bow to fight Armor Spider etc. All of those methods trivialize the threat of the boss. So in my opinion, the game loses its difficulty the further you go. Is something too hard? Go somewhere else and come back when you've got better equipment/stats. There's also the Cling Ring which, with good Vitality, still lets you have a lot of Health. If you, like me, went the entire game in Soul Form, you won't even notice the decrease in HP. The only time you need to go into Body Form is if you want to lower World Tendency.

In comparision; DaS always stays relatively hard throughout the entire game. Even if you've got fully upgraded armor and weapons, you can't be sure you'll win. Certain bosses throw in something new to mix things up (Seath's Curse, O&S being a duo etc.) while others are just outright stronger than you'd expect. There's also less options on where to go, and you can't just warp out like in DeS or DaSII. In DaS you actually have to commit to your choices, atleast until you get the Lordvessel. You can't for example grab a weapon, then instantly get it upgraded fully just like that. You need to get out of the place you're in and walk all the way to the right Blacksmith.