I dabbled in the Rat King covenant and made the mistake (in hindsight) of burning one of those thingies which ups the difficulty so I could troll other players (yes I'm a bad person but DS2 PvP seemed to me arbitrary and imprecise to the point that I never quite understood why I had such success with it at the time so making things even harder for the reverse invaders didn't seem to matter much run on sentence).  Which is to say that now I have to defeat an even tougher boss to get to the Gutter and Black Gulch, which I didn't explore the first time.  I died to the Smelter Demon (I think that's its name) a few times before giving up.  I've most recently done some exploring in the Shaded Woods.

Is the Executioner's Chariot the one reached by the Huntsman's Copse?  The one where it drives around in a circle and you have to step into little alcoves like you're dodging the subway or something?  If so, I actually co-oped that boss a ton of times before I even attempted it myself.  Looking back, I feel that I spent quite a bit of time on this game with co-op and pvp but then realize I don't have much to show for story progression.

Starting to ramble here sorry, but I do notice that my harsh opinion has softened a bit and I can see some merit.  As a game taken on its own it's not bad, but I still see so many backward steps (the crap fan-fiction-y lore not the least of its transgressions) that I doubt I'll ever consider it anything but a bad Souls game.
Also, making my way through the first area with my Cleric.  If you saw me start a game in Dark Souls and basically waltz through everything with hardly a misstep, and then see me muddling my way through Giant town or whatever, you'd swear it was two different people.

Edit: Did I read that right?  You have THREE versions of this game?!  Also, since I stopped paying attention, all the DLC for this game just confuses me.  I have no idea what is what.

Personally I found DkS2 a lot harder than the first, though I admit this probably had more to do with how used to DkS1 I was. The Bastille in particular is an early area I struggled with. Summoning help for nearly every boss is a common strategy of mine. Even moreso in Dark 2, where it feels like some (most) bosses were designed to be taken on as part of a team rather than solo. The obvious example of this is the Ruin Sentinels in the Bastille. People do beat them solo, but I can't imagine how.

They made a mechanical change in Dark Souls 2 that revealed an interesting element of my playstyle -- I tend to spend a lot of time in each area, often returning to bonfires rather than trying to make more and more progress with each attempt. You'd think I'd have noticed this about my style, but I never actually did until Dark 2, and then only because enemies stop respawning after thirty runs or so. Maybe it's a gremlin of the Fear Of Failure ingrained in all players who started with Demon's Souls. The only way to defeat these games is to realize that the fear is a false construct, that there's no real penalty for failure (it just seems like there is). That hesitance to move forward despite needing to in order to progress seems like a leftover from that psychology.

I'm still on the fence about PC or PS4. Really a choice of convenience rather than merit, though I'm a little worried about the playerbase on the PC version. There's always the danger of ruinous cheating on that platform.

You speak for me Xtal.  PTDE was very nice (thanks to Durante).  But I appreciate it having already had the full experience on PS3 without all the cheating nonsense.  So my annoyance with that stuff was minimized.

I don't know what's going on here.  I'm actually enjoying this playthrough and I can't quite grasp what has changed.  I mean I just came across the Sunbro shrine again sitting there, context-free, and it didn't really bother me.  Maybe it's just my lowered expectations given the time that has passed.  I hate stating this, especially since in every even slightly negative review of this game the writer goes out of his way to insist that he still thinks it's a fantastic game blah blah blah grow a spine and stand by your opinion.  What was I saying?  Yes, I guess there is a decent game here underneath all the things I hate.

Botch is being punished by our forum system, but the forum won't tell me why. It just insists it's doing the right thing and then goes off on a long lecture about how fortunate we are to have it wrangling and occasionally disciplining "user-humans" like "that one." In any case, he and I (Botch and I, that is, not the forum and I) have hatched a plan we think will get the problem solved, but we can't talk about it or else the forum will hear us.

With Souls 3 out in a week or so, it makes little sense for me to venture back into Souls 2 at this point, and I need to stay away from Bloodborne entirely so as not to get muscle-memoried to its many subtle differences. Will you make it in time, Botch?

Pursuer always gave me a hard time, man... except the time he's a "traditional" boss, shortly after Last Giant. But when he apparates in from nowhere and starts pursuing all up in your business, he destroys me every time. The Pursuer's efforts to pursue his pursuits was ratcheted up in Scholar of the First Sin, where the fucker seems to turn up every time you happen into a large-ish, square-ish area open enough for him to wield that absurd blue sword of his.

Smelter also took me a while. He has an area attack that he telegraphs pretty clearly, but still it's sometimes hard to get away. All told I was glad to leave the Iron Keep behind me. I dislike warm environments.

I gave up on the gargoyles as soon as I learned they were an optional boss. As you say, the environment inside Belfry Luna is a nightmare. It makes summoning hard, it makes getting summoned hard, it makes the already-hard area harder, plus my first character was all melee and not a PvP build since it was so difficult to get close to invaders. I did better later, as a Cleric with the thunder spell, which was pretty handy since you could farm players for Titanite... what was it? Chunks? I think chunks.

But it got old real fast struggling up three flights of midget-infested hellstairs, getting all bundled up with summoned help, and having the fog door seal itself just as you're about to go through because you got invaded AGAIN. It struck me as especially moronic that you were invaded just as relentlessly after you joined the Covenant and put the ring on.

With the gargoyles down the Last Sinner is a much easier fight (saw it on YouTube). Where are you headed after that? The Gutter?

Gutter? I hardly know her!

Sinner dead.  Thanks again Lucatiel.  Pursuer dead too, and thanks for the Ring of Blades +1 ya jerk.  Good dodge practice at least.  I'm doing a ton of coop trying to rank up Sunbro covenant.  Rank 1 nets you a crap shield.  Yay.
Exploring Shaded Woods now.  There is a darn big Basilisk here.  Went to pick up curse ring from Megalon or whatever his name is in Iron Keep.

I don't really like the +ring system either.  Rings were always these odd, unique things that gave you some fixed benefit.  Trying to include them in the general level-progression system seems like the wrong approach to me.  That said, there are some mechanics in this game which I didn't explore the first time that I think are interesting, for example upgradeable chimes and staves.  Also elements scaling with Int/Fth.

It was Steerpike who hadn't taken on Chariot dude.  I've actually fought him many times in coop.  I was considering skipping him this time however since I now know he's optional and the fight is nothing new to me.  I did in fact only fight the Gargoyles in order to get the Bastille Key.  That and since I consider them one of the tougher bosses I faced, I wanted to gauge my character's ability.

Are you day 1 on DS3 Xtal?  And I forget if Pokey and Simple got into DS2.