Still an amazing game, however I found myself liking it less than my first playthrough. I think I was much more critical of the flaws in the game this time around, like, the first time playing I kinda didn’t get the hate for the second half, like I agreed it was worse than the first but I still liked most areas and liked the areas more than most did. While replaying I found areas like lost izalith and tomb of the giants as not just underwhelming compared to the rest of the game, but just straight up bad areas. I think that tomb has more going for it than lost izalith but it’s also sooooo annoying and not fun to play through. New londo ruins is a mixed bag for me, like, the ghosts are annoying as hell and no bonfire kinda sucks but besides that it’s pretty good. Duke archives is still one I like a lot tbh, the whole prison part is fucking great and I love the overall aesthetic of the area, though besides that it doesn’t feel anything special, still great though. Oh and also the bosses for the areas are all bad in my opinion, so that makes the second half all the more underwhelming. What makes the areas up to anor londo so good is the deliberate placement of every enemy, item, merchant, bonfire, boss etc. they are there to serve a purpose, even if annoying. This is very clearly lacking from most areas in the second half, and is the main reason to me as to why it’s such a big fall off. It is very telling to the first half’s quality, that even though I speak so negatively about most of the second half, I still give this 4.5 stars and rank it among my favourite games of all time. It’s still such a unique experience and it still wowed me my second time around

Amazing game, not sure whether it’s an 8 or 9 tbf. Story was awesome, makes me excited for the rest of the series. I preferred Majima for sure, his journey over the course of the game was brilliant and I found myself getting emotionally invested in him, Kiryu was great too especially his relationship with Nishikiyama. Makoto was kinda meh I never rly got attached to her and the villains and other side characters were mostly good with a few exceptions. Overall amazing game and I could see it growing on me