turns out that yes, I still fucking hate DS2

it feels bad to play and is absurdly brutal and murderous from hour one

and basic quality of life bullshit is gated behind fighting legions of giants five times your size

I got the ring of binding but literally only because the enemy AI broke four times

it's like Bloodborne in terms of frontloading the difficulty but way worse due to having inferior combat and also the frontloaded difficulty period is much, much longer

I don't think, in all my attempts

that I've ever gotten past the frontloaded difficulty

it's probably very debatable where the cutoff point is but if you were in Lost Bastille... quite possibly not

all of my old DS2 exhaustion from like four years ago

came back INSTANTLY

honestly I based this suggestion off the fact that we had very similar problems with the game and I was glad I managed to overcome them but

you were having way less fun way faster than I ever did

not by being worse at the game even!

but the Bash Head Against Problem For Six Hours gene runs stronger in me than in you I think

I've become less patient with age

when I'm at like the third bonfire in the game, and I'm going out, fighting one enemy, and dying

multiple times in a row

it's just so fucking dire