Dark Souls 2 has way cooler environments and more variety in general. Majula as a home base is very sweet with a beautiful view, pretty waifu, pretentious cat merchant and cool smith. The characters are more interesting overall. It also felt harder, which is kind of a double edged sword though. It had more frustrating moments and BS mechanics, but those made it acceptable to summon help without making it feel like cheesing. It was also my first Dark Souls so my judgement is probably clouded by nostalgia to some extent.

Really? Why so? I'm trying DS2 now and I'm not really liking it that much. To be fair I haven't gotten far into it.