Good action rpg - not the best, but worth the time
Pluses:
1) Fairly epic game - should take most gamers at least 50 hours or more to complete - longer with the so-so expansion pack
2) Decent story the pulls everything together - not a fantastic story, but enough to keep you mildly immersed. At it's heart, DS is a combat driven rpg
3) Cool items, weapons armor, etc. - You can even enchant armor with various items - I didn't spend a lot of time on the enchantment stuff though.
4) Great combat - best part of the game is just plowing through a bunch of baddies. In addition, and a related plus factor, is the special powers developed through role play. Very fun to use these in battle..they are effective
5) Decent bossies - they get some stellar hitpoints towards the end, but note that you have some options available, not including your own weapons, that allow you to quickly dispense with what appears to be the most challenging of bosses, including Valdis
6) Very good sidequests - I enjoyed some of the sidequests more than the primary quest - some quests earned earlier in the game won't be finished until much later
7) Decent if not overly challenging puzzles - helps break the monotony of combat - could use more of these
8) Sound and music is superb - no question that the developers have this factor nailed. Music used as a great tool to set mood
Minuses:
1) Story could be more immersive. It kept me going but I always feel this is something the DS series could do better which leads me to...
2) Characters - I never really feel engaged with the primary character - who is he/she? why are they here? I don't think one gets enough answers even at the end. The other playable characters are alright but nothing really brings them all together. There's some intermittent dialogue a la "Baldurs" but the other characters are pretty much just there to fill out your party and add a sidequest or two. I would have liked to see my knight get a little lovin' from the nature mage or princess...tee hee
3) Equipment sets - Although I would otherwise classify these as a plus, because they are sooo cool, the game makes it very difficult to get all these a items together. Not until close to the end was I able to put even one set together - maybe i was doing something wrong ...i don't know. It appears that there were different levels of a given type of set, but I couldn't even get the lower level sets together. Note: As you put weapons, armor, jewelry together from a set you gain additional powers/enhancements offered by the set. The concept is great and the sets are designed to match not only the classes, but also the specific skills you master. For instance there's a set for the dual wielding knight or a different sets for the shield bearer knight or two-handed knight. All fine and dandy, but I just never really got to put it all together. The only set I was able to put together was one for a crossbow wielding ranger - the set was actually pretty awesome and powerful, although limited to just 3 items- should have had a helmet/hood with it too. Anway, as you can see, I written quite a bit on this one point. I feel it's a potentially awesome aspect of the game that should be a little easier to put into effect. This leads to my next point...
4) Stores/loot - I amassed a great deal of wealth by the end of the game. There is much gold to be had and you can max out of gold by using the chants and jewelry to increase your payouts. This is good, but there is not much to buy from the stores except the usually potion or spell. The weapons and armor in the stores are pretty much junk compared to what you find in battle or searches. There are some decent amulets and rings in the store, but otherwise you will be very rich with nothing to buy. I would have recommend that the stores at least have a piece from one of the sets available so that you can complete the set after finding the other pieces. Also, note that the stores in the last town of the game are surprisingly the worst - very sparse until you complete a certain side quests, but even then you're almost done with the game.
5) Voice Acting - in short it's just a mixed bag - some good some very bad to downright annoying. Minor beef though in my view.
6) Graphics - They are certainly okay , but not the wow factor of the first game. There you have it. I know I dwell on some of the perceived negatives in DSII, but these are just things that I would like to see done better in the series. Overall, DSII is a very enjoyable game that every rpg fan should play.