Similarly, the Bell-ringing and 'Four Grand Souls' design of Dark Souls means that the boss fights are tied more deeply to the central goals of the game - there is a feeling of an event in one part of the world being attached to a grand design. Dark Souls feels like you've been dropped in a queasy, vicious nightmare, while Dark Souls 2 feels like you're in a 'gameworld' - a collection of levels strung together in an altogether more linear fashion.
If you're examining the two games based on the cohesion of its assorted places, the way they're connected and the wondrous sights along the way then that notion would be correct. There's a popular notion that Dark Souls is a modern masterpiece, yet it's sequel - though well received initially - isn't even close to reaching the same soaring critical heights as its predecessor. Here, he argues that Dark Souls II changes and improves on the formula set by its predecessor and that it has the greatest expansions in all of gaming.
But we can all agree on one thing, right? Dark Souls is superior to its first sequel in almost every way. It'll take a great deal of analysis to figure out how exactly Dark Souls III fits into the wider mythology of the series in terms of its tremendous, cryptic lore, and it might take even longer for critical opinion to decide where it ranks in the pantheon of Souls games.
