7. Bonfire Warping And Levelling Present Many Issues
It's all well and good (and actually rather revolutionary) having the potential for your entire RPG world open from the get-go. Want to take that broken sword or pithy dagger you start with and have a crack at the final boss? Warp over there and have at his shins a bit - chances are he'll still nosh your eyelids off before breakfast. As appealing as that idea is, what is present in DS2 isn't actually what many reported on in the lead-up. Yes you are free to warp between bonfires as you see fit, but only AFTER you've discovered and lit them first, so essentially nothing really changes aside from the bizarre inclusion of a need to warp back to a small cliffside village called Majula to level up. With levelling up being something you'll be doing every 20 minutes or so (especially at the start of the game), it's definitely something of a sack-ache to continually traipse back to this area, whereas any of the previous game's many bonfires would allow the exact same thing. Whilst it is a nod back to the original Demon's Souls by way of that game's Nexus hub-world, it's a noticeable step back in progression and ease of play. You can add features to an already brimming game, but for the love of praising the Sun, don't take them out.
