Yeah, I didn't enjoy it until my second or third attempt. And I didn't like Dark Souls until my second or third attempt either. I still don't like it the way most people do. I appreciate what it brings to the table, but there's a lot of things that bother me, and Dark Souls 2 has a lot of things that bother me, but they're completely different things. They're extremely different games. And they both bring fantastic things to the table, but they're completely different fantastic things. DS1 has much better art style, lore infusion, and more impactful NPCs and quests. DS2 has much better weapon variety and combinations, dual wielding is legitimately a thing and a really fun thing at that, and the outfit options are ridiculous. Fashion Souls at its highest. And I initially hated the way aptitude and attunement worked with your agility and animation speed, but after a while it made sense. Dark Souls 1 only had an encumberance issue that you could overcome with building up your equip load. But it's much more in depth in 2. You feel like your character is actually becoming more competent the higher your agility gets. And the life gem thing got a lot of criticism initially, coupled with the fact that it can sometimes take forever to garner enough estus flasks to survive long runs on. But after playing Bloodborne and coming back and treating life gems that way, like a band-aid in a desperate situation, it worked a lot better. Save estus for safe times to recover, but life gems are where it's at. And many people still hate that, but that's how it was apparently meant, and when you don't fight that system, its a lot better