Dark Souls II Review (Newman’s Own)
First off, quick PSA: DO NOT GET SCHOLAR OF THE FIRST SIN. BUY THIS VERSION, SCHOLAR IS A SCAM.
Scholar apparently does a couple balancing tweaks here and there, which may sound nice except that the main thing that Scholar changes is enemy placement. Scholar adds significantly more enemies to certain areas, making those areas exponentially more difficult and unfun. This is a major problem as Scholar promotes itself as the "definitive" version of Dark Souls II, meaning gullible new players (such as myself) will buy it, thinking they're getting an authentic experience, only to ragequit after the first few levels because of the ridiculous enemy spam, which only serves to compound the divisive-at-best reputation this game has. Vanilla Dark Souls II (this version) actually has smart enemy placement and a reasonable difficulty curve, making it much easier to deal with some of the games (admittedly significant) flaws, and even actually have fun. This version also still has the DLC, so you aren't missing out on that if you don't get Scholar.
Moving onto thoughts on the actual game: I enjoyed it way more than Dark Souls I, however it's not as good as Dark Souls III. Your mileage on the game will depend on your playstyle. This game is slow. Your character is slow, but enemies are also slow, so you're encouraged to take a more strategic and methodical approach to combat. As a result, you're often expected to deal with larger groups of enemies at a time, and it works surprisingly well if you take the time to learn it. A big thing that helps surprisingly, is to not use the lock-on feature, as you have more range of motion when locked off, so you'll be able to dodge attacks more easily, and enemies are slow enough that you're able to move the camera yourself. If you're willing to take the time to learn this style of combat, you'll likely have a good time with this game.
That being said, this game does have some major flaws that will understandably turn people off. They certainly turned me off when I played Scholar and had to deal with the BS enemy spam.
1. Hitboxes. The hitboxes for enemy attacks are often very large, while the hitboxes on your weapons are seemingly pixel-perfect. As such, sometimes you'll get hit by attacks that it looked like you dodged, and smaller weapons like the broadsword have trouble comboing because the first swing knocks some enemies out of range of the second. Playing locked-off can usually mitigate this issue, since the larger range of motion will give you a wider dodge.
2. Healing. This game introduces a new healing item known as lifegems, and they essentially make your estus nearly obsolete. You can move while using it, while estus locks you in place for a painfully slow animation. They also heal you slowly, meaning you can pop a few of these at once and essentially have a passive regen effect, allowing you to tank way more damage than you otherwise would be able to. Finally, while they are consumable, there's an NPC you unlock in the early game that sells an infinite number of them, so you'll literally never run out. I don't see why they couldn't have just made it so that you could move while sipping and left out the gems altogether.
3. The Curse. Every time you die, your max health decreases slightly, and caps when you reach half health. To get your health back, you have to pop a Human Effigy, which is this game's equivalent to Humanities/Embers/Rune Arcs, etc. And these things are pretty scarce in the early game. They do get more common later, and there's a ring that caps the debuff to 3 quarters health instead of half, but it's still a pretty dumb punishment for death. Dark Souls I and III had a better system with their equivalent items.
4. Adaptability. This game introduces a new stat called Adaptability, which controls the amount of invincibility frames you get when you roll. In the previous game, your i-frames were determined by your equip load (light/mid/fat), and it later titles like III and Elden Ring give you the same amount of i-frames for each type of roll, and the speed of the animation changes more drastically. Dark Souls II still has those 3 tiers of roll, but the i-frames are entirely dependent on that Adaptability stat, and you NEED to level that if you want a decent roll, especially with this game's hitboxes. It's an interesting idea, since you could potentially do a dodge build and have an overpowered roll, but considering how rolling is such an integral part of souls combat, it really shouldn't be something that you have to actively dump levels into and change drastically over the course of the game. I've found for a decent Dark Souls III style roll, your Adaptability should be around 20-30, although you can get by with less.
5. This isn't really a flaw, I actually really like this about the game, but some people might not like it. A vast majority of the enemies and bosses in this game are big dudes in armor that are mechanically similar to each other. I like it since the armor is cool looking and they're fun to fight, but others might not like it as much.
TL/DR: Dark Souls II is a fun game if you're willing to put some time in to learn it, and enjoy the style of combat that it promotes. In my opinion, it's better than the first game, though not as good as the third. Don't make my mistake and get Scholar of the First Sin. It's a scam.