Okay, so I finally platinumed Scholar of the First Sin and in the end wound up having a much better time with it than I expected, and was looking forward to doing the same with DSIII since I considered it superior to DSII in my initial run.

WTF HAPPENED?

I feel like the jump from 60 fps in SotFS to 30 fps here is a huge contributing factor, as is the fact that I've watched a lot of DSIII footage on youtube in the interim which is almost always from the PC version. The PS4 version looks like absolute ass by comparison. But more importantly, how did I never notice before how terrible and jerky and spastic the animations are? The rolling feels especially weird. If you're holding forward on the analog stick while attacking, the transition from attack swing to running looks really awkward. My character looks like a robot when swigging Estus or queuing spells.

But some of the enemy animations are throwing me for a loop as well. I feel like they've been copy/pasted from Bloodborne with faster attack speeds and little to no recoveries, which worked great in BB but with the more sluggish feel of DS feels mad frustrating. I think the major reason this didn't bother me before was I stuck to sword/shield in my original run, but while playing SotFS I got really good at dodging and two-handing and power stance. Seriously, being able to dodge in any direction in a full 360 degrees while locked on was by far DSII's greatest innovation. But for hordes of enemies it really doesn't feel like a viable tactic here.

I really hope something clicks back into place. I had a lot of fun with DSIII the first time through, and after such a great takeaway from SotFS I felt like I could sincerely say I loved every entry in the series, not something that happens very often for me. This is simply heartbreaking. I kind of want to pop in some of the other games to compare but I'm a little afraid of what I'll find. DSII winding up being my favorite is.... unthinkable.