I played Dark souls 1 and Dark souls 3 before Ds2:SotFS, and even with that ds2 is my favorite. Its challenging but never really gets really frustrating like the others, the game performs beautifully, and I love the freedom offered by things like the soul vessels.
I also like how you get some choices on where to go first at some points, mainly in the beginning and at the memory sequence part.
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I didnt get the DLC but I remember liking the combat more than 1, but I felt like it was lazy at being difficult by just throwing multiple enemies at you and blah placement. Also those 3 boss shits with the spears (?) were hell for me haha. Though my first run of the game was dual ceasti Dark Souls 3 is probably my fav though, everything just feels pretty perfect