Well it just so happens that I did acquire Dark Souls III as well, so it will be interesting to see what changed. I can already tell DSIII sped up the combat considerably.

Onto DSII, I just beat my first boss, the Old Dragon Rider. Not too difficult outside of having more health than I would care for and his Halberd has some funky hit boxes. I acquired the actual Knight set, but I'll need to beef up my endurance and weight load before it becomes viable. I also farmed the Old Knights long enough to almost have all of their armor sets except the leggings. I even have the Ultra Greatsword now, but I'm far too underleveled to make any use of it. I need to find better equipment, or at least something I can live with looking at #fashionsouls

Despite whining about needing a shield, so far it seems like two-handing my weapon and just dodging has been more useful, that or my hands are still trying to play Bloodborne. I did find that easy shield, but still ended up picking up a good medium shield anyway.

I like the locales so far. The Crestfallen Knight is the same, but it was interesting that he runs a Covenant now. Not sure what the Covenant of Blue does, but joined it anyway in hopes it will keep invaders down. The cat is amusing as hell and my fave character so far. I also bought the Ring that restores a bit of health when you defeat and enemy, maybe I subconsciously do want to replay Bloodborne. I like the fact the blacksmith looks like the former leader of the Stonefang Tunnels from Demon's Souls, that was a nice touch. I just met the Cleric who teaches miracles, but I like the fact she feels like a con artist. These guys really don't like the clergy for some reason because they always turn out to be a bit more evil or two-faced than the other characters. I also met the cool buccaneer swordwoman with the Pinwheel looking mask. She seems interesting. The Armor Merchant is pretty cool as well. I kind of like his timid personality. Reminds me of Stockpile Thomas from Demon's Souls as well. I haven't quite decided on the Emerald Herald yet, she's a bit too stiff and trying too hard to be mysterious for my taste.

I don't really want to dive into the Wharf area yet, so I may backtrack and check out a new area first, especially since I fast traveled back to Marjula to level up and maybe check out some more armor wares.

I haven't quite figured out what build to go for, but I do feel the addition of Adaptability and its affect on using Estus to be kind of lame. Sort of makes that stat feel more high priority than others which is kind of annoying. At least Poison Resistance is gone. Do I need to focus on Dex for dual-wielding or is still strength mostly?

I hear we have a fourth type of magic now in this game as well. I dabbled in sorceries in Demon's Souls, and while I originally was going to build a Paladin type character in DS1, I ended up really liking Pyromancy more (especially since I could buff it without sacrificing soul levels) and while third time is a charm for Miracles, I'm curious what all this fuss is about Hex magic, especially since I've heard it has a spell to deal with mages.

I feel like the Hollow form is kind of silly looking. We went from looking like the ReDead's from Zelda to looking like Warcraft Zombies. It's amusing to say the least. Also, what is up with those three piglets in Marjula?