The first time I played this game, I hated it for what it wasn't. It wasn't Dark Souls, or at least it wasn't Dark Souls 1. So I left it there, trashed it in conversation when it came up, went on to Bloodborne and DS3 and didn't look back.

But then I did look back. I gave it another shot with an open mind and stopped trying to compare it to the others and take it as its own thing, and that helped. It also helped that the game shows its hand very early on, and that hand has exactly one card in it; the screw you card. This game is trap heavy. This game is mob heavy. This game is aggrivate and annoy the player whenever possible heavy. And it works. Somehow, and somehow, all the BS I hated the first time around failed to keep me from enjoying myself. It's not as good as the others in the series, but it doesn't have to be because it's doing its own thing and honestly doing it quite well. In all the other games I NEVER had as much fun with a covenant as I did serving the Rat King (#Ratlyfe) and the fact that the game itself is so slated against the player with traps and mobs is precisely why that covenant works at all. That's merely one example but it's perhaps my personal best example of the fun I could have in this game that the others could not provide me.

The first time I played this game, I hated it for what it wasn't. It wasn't Dark Souls, or at least it wasn't Dark Souls 1. So I left it there, trashed it in conversation when it came up, went on to Bloodborne and DS3 and didn't look back. But then I did look back. I gave it another shot with an open mind and stopped trying to compare it to the others and take it as its own thing, and that helped. It also helped that the game shows its hand very early on, and that hand has exactly one card in it; the screw you card. This game is trap heavy. This game is mob heavy. This game is aggrivate and annoy the player whenever possible heavy. And it works. Somehow, and somehow, all the BS I hated the first time around failed to keep me from enjoying myself. It's not as good as the others in the series, but it doesn't have to be because it's doing its own thing and honestly doing it quite well. In all the other games I NEVER had as much fun with a covenant as I did serving the Rat King (#Ratlyfe) and the fact that the game itself is so slated against the player with traps and mobs is precisely why that covenant works at all. That's merely one example but it's perhaps my personal best example of the fun I could have in this game that the others could not provide me.