The Dark Souls 2 defenders are still logged on from doris89592's blog

The absence of the fanbase’s mythologized auteur left the sequel little room for error before certain purists wrote it off Dark And Darker Gold as a poor imitation. A graphical downgrade between its reveal trailer and release didn’t earn back any good will, and it wasn’t the only flaw for those tallying marks against the game.

Some iffy hitboxes here, some recycled bosses there. A willingness to repeatedly mob you with unseen enemies. The questionable choice of tying your dodge window to the adaptability stat. 

Earthen Peak, generally. Lifegems.There’s plenty to quibble over in Dark Souls 2 if you're in the mood, enough to earn an unfortunately lasting reputation. At any time, a quick Reddit search will pull up a few dozen threads asking whether Dark Souls 2 is as bad as you’ve heard, or reacting with surprise when it isn’t. 

It’s a cyclical debate spanning the last eight years, and whenever it’s spun up again, the Dark Souls 2 defenders emerge. You’ll find them racking up page counts with Resetera defense threads, or popping off Reddit discussions that, in 2022, are still earning hundreds of comments.

Many of the standard complaints are worth noting. But still, somehow, Dark Souls 2’s most loyal supporters found something beneath its blemishes that the other Souls games haven’t been able to match, either before or in the eight years since. And I asked them to buy Dark And Darker Gold tell me what that was, in their own words.