Dark Souls 2 or 3?

First of all, 2 is better than 3.
With that said, if you're making your decision after playing a different souls-like game, you should probably go with 3.

2 is a lot slower pace compared to 3 and smoothbrains find that hard to appreciate.

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>Ds2
>hit an enemy

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what

the image implies tearing but i'm going to guess he was trying to say shockwaves because old meme

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this is the power of ds2 fans
he's talking about weapon durability

Yea Forums will try to convince you that DS2 is bad because of a few bad hitboxes, bad animations, emtpy rooms and repeated textures, but it's the chapter that rewards the most thinking and strategizing in combat, it has a large variety of locations with a very open world design, immense replayability and build diversity, the best levels in the series (the DLCs), the most fun PvP and just a lot of SOUL in general.

Meanwhile DS3 is definetely more polished and looks prettier, the enemies have weighty and satisfying animations and the bosses overall have more complex movesets and AIs. But that's basically it. The rest of the game is a linear roll simulator with some of the most boring levels in the series.

cheap sound effects ;)

DS2 is good despite it's many flaws and high replay-ability due to lots of viable builds.
DS3 is a bit more focused in it's design and suffers from relying on callbacks rather than trying new things, which leads to it becoming stale after a first play-through.
Both are worth playing.

>best levels in the series
>most soul
This person has never played a video game in their life. DS1 has the best levels, Demons has the most soul.

Oi, no need to sass me. No one understood what you were saying so pick a more appropriate image next time.

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>8 directional snaplock movement
>Mo-cap animations, they look worse and add nothing
>Broken hitboxes
>I-frames are tied to a stat making hitboxes feel even worse
>Poor level design, lacking basic shortcuts
>Quantity over quality design philosophy
>More bosses than Ds1 and 3 combined yet very few are memorable
>Uninspired generic fantasy designs
>Inconsistent world connectivity, each area feels like an isolated level rather than a part of a sprawling world
>Forced manual while locked on with ultra greatweapons defeating the entire point of lock on
>Poor attack tracking often directs your swings wrong direction, most notable on rolling attacks
>Parrying has been changed from fluid button combo to an awkward wait for the enemy to fall down for a riposte
>Downgraded lighting engine makes every area look fullbright
>Repeating textures are embarrassingly noticeable
There're more examples but you get the point

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>Forced manual aim *

No level of DS1 is as good as Shulva.

DS3i s the most linear, but from a design standpoint is superior to DS2.
Illustrates this best. top is DS1, middle is DS 2, bottom is DS3

>deadzones
>unresponsive attacking thanks to no windup and positioning frames which also affects NPCs so you and them often end up hitting air
>poor audiovisual design to the point that placeholder assets are still visible, levels are visibly unfinished with giant holes in the geometry and parts of it simply missing, sound effects don't fit what's happening, etc.
>a plethora of recovery items and shit that you'll probably never use
>it's painfully obvious that the world was cobbled together out of assets that don't belong together and filled with enemies and characters that once had completely different roles

>8 directional snaplock movement

Takes 20 seconds to get used to and literally doesn't change a thing about the game (source: played it without deadzone and it was the exact same thing)

>Mo-cap animations, they look worse and add nothing

The player animations look objectively better

>Broken hitboxes

Every soul game has shitty hitboxes, DS2 having it worse is just a meme because it's a slower game so they are more easily noticed.

>I-frames are tied to a stat making hitboxes feel even worse

Partly true

>Poor level design, lacking basic shortcuts

Level quality isn't proportionate to the number of shortcuts

>Quantity over quality design philosophy

True for the most part

>More bosses than Ds1 and 3 combined yet very few are memorable

Yes but most bosses are still better than the ones in base DS1 which were largely shit

>Uninspired generic fantasy designs

Yes, anime souls 3 is definetely better

>Inconsistent world connectivity, each area feels like an isolated level rather than a part of a sprawling world

True

>Forced manual while locked on with ultra greatweapons defeating the entire point of lock on

Learn how to play unlocked

>Poor attack tracking often directs your swings wrong direction, most notable on rolling attacks

It's a deliberate choice, you can't hit an enemy if you're facing the wrong direction, you have to reposition

>Parrying has been changed from fluid button combo to an awkward wait for the enemy to fall down for a riposte

True

>Downgraded lighting engine makes every area look fullbright

Reshade

>Repeating textures are embarrassingly noticeable

Who cares

>The player animations look objectively better

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Both are fine games for different reasons. My only issue with 2 was that the combat and encounter design is easily the worst in the series.

DaS2 was scrapped quite late in development and the remains were patched together with what amounts to pretty placeholder design (corridors and elevators). When it's good then it's good because there's some charm to the various elements that likely bloated the scope of the scrapped project but it's overall quite obviously unfinished and lacking in any real polish. It feels like it was puzzled together decently and that's really what leaves it in mediocrity rather than just being objectively awful.

DaS3 meanwhile is very phoned in. A lot of shortcuts were taken in terms of level design, the world layout, the enemy design, the combat and the general mechanics. It's only really decent for a first playthrough since it focuses a lot on certain elements of the souls games (difficulty, dodge rolls and bosses) to the exclusion of the cohesive whole that made the games good in the first place.

Skip 2. You'll hate it if you're coming straight from 1.

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If you think the combat is good enough to carry an entire game, then go for it.
Otherwise play Demons souls and then drop the series.