They really fixed the coop in the first (second) game recently. Even made the invasions opt-in. It's now a really enjoyable 2-player coop experience.

I'm so tired of game naming trends. Let's not make any mention of the sequel being a sequel and name the third game number two!

Woo, magat souls!

Ignoring the chuddy lead and constant insistence on making the game a bit more hateful with every update... it just isn't a good game.

Weapon balance is very much you either go meta or fight health sponges. At first I thought it was just me but then I checked a few of the mid tier streamers and they were having the same issue where it felt like an NG+ fight in terms of damage... on NG. That said, it also seems like LOTF classic where there are a few OP spells that can trivialize any fight.

Level design? The concept of the lantern is REALLY cool. The reality is that it just means you explore the whole light world. Then you switch to shadow. And then you explore the whole shadow world. And because of the focus on geometry changes, you never really have a sense of continuity. It is very rarely "I am going to shift to the shadow realm to get past this flaming wreckage" and more "I am going to shift to the shadow realm and end up outside the boss gate".

And for general build theory? On paper, the idea of linking item descriptions to minimum stats is interesting. In reality? It just means you are either checking a wiki or building blind because you have no idea if the item that needs Radiance 20 to identify is good or not. I get that this all has links to the old PnP games but... even those have mostly done away with this and just hide extra stats behind a catch all dump stat for your high INT player.

Also, speaking of the updates. Yup, trans and enby erasure with every update. But even if you are totally tolerant but don't approve of their lifestyle blah blah hateful motherfucking blah... it also fundamentally changes the game. They removed the boss fight that you were basically guaranteed to lose on a first run which, in turn, breaks what little story there is. And, last I checked, the only way to reenable those is to play with the launch balance of enemies which was... real bad. It is a parody of inclusive difficulty settings with basically "if you want to play the real game you have to play our bullshit where even Dark Souls 2 thinks it is a bit much".

So yeah. Chuddy ass game from a bunch of chuds that isn't even all that great. Like... I might actually prefer the original Lords of the Fallen since that at least tried interesting things and had some fun boss encounters... if you picked the right magic at the start of the game. And those devs moved on to make The Surge which (poor level design aside) are genuinely fun souls games with an eye to both transhumanism and workers rights. This? At BEST it is an incremental improvement to the laughing stock of 2014.