Lower Undead Burg isn't a masterpiece or anything, but it's not a bad area. Blighttown's only flaw was running terribly on xbox360 and ps3. The Depths, Sen's Fortress, and the Crystal Cave were all cool. How did you not mention the really terrible area, Demon Ruins / Izalith / anything in that entire section of the game.
to my knowledge, the only change is the new bonfire at the skeleton blacksmith
If you're gonna criticize DS1 you gotta do it right. The shit areas are demon ruins, tomb of giants, and lost izalith.
The ones you listed are fine lol
Who the fuck hates Sen's Fortress. It's a house of traps that can be ran through in like 45 seconds if needed and has a lot of neat semi-hidden areas.
No Man's Wharf
Huntsmans Copse
Forest of Fallen Giants
Earthen Peak
Old Iron Keep
Shrine of Amana
Hiede's Tower of Flame
Black Gulch
Brightstone Cove Tseldora
Sinners Rise
Grave of Saints
Belfry Sol
Belfry Luna
Doors of Pharos
Care to defend any of those terrible areas? I've listed like half the game here
I haven't played DS1.
I love DS2 but acknowledge its problems. Namely, a lot of the fights are just ganks, and that's bad design. Plenty of people don't understand that part of why Dark Souls games are great is that they are challenging, but fair, with very clear feedback so you can always tell what you did wrong and use that info to improve if you pay attention and keep a clear head. Some of these encounters break that rule. Also, failure to follow that design principle is responsible for nearly every failure in a "souls-like" game.
Dark Souls 3 though -- now there's a game. Extremely polished, extremely satisfying, everything about it. I do especially love the sound design and magic effects looking pretty -- extremely important for someone who always does spell casting. The weapon art system or whatever it was called was really fun, I loved my flexible MLGS melee hybrid sorcerer since between sword beams and stuff like Farron Flashsword I had so many kinds of unexpected bullshit I could trip people up on in PVP. I remember my time playing it fondly. But I think I remember them making offensive miracles into completely worthless garbage for some reason so I don't like that part so much.