I love the Dark Souls series. They're actually some of my favorite games of all time. Therefore, it's needless to say that I love Dark Souls II. I would go as far as to say it's my favorite Souls game. After playing vanilla Dark Souls II, I'd thought, "Well, Scholar of the First Sin could only be better."

I was so wrong.

Scholar of the First Sin is what you'd expect, Dark Souls II with some supposed upgrades. Some mechanic updates regarding co-op, PVP, etc. They also decide to give you the DLC with the game, maybe trying to do something like Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition.
My largest problem was how they changed the world. After playing vanilla, I'd expect to know where everything is. Instead, they'd decided to change enemy spawn locations, which would be okay. The manner that they'd put enemies around the world made it feel like artificial difficulty. It's as if there's no way to not fight every single enemy in your way.
*looks at Iron Keep*
I don't really mind everything else, as it's pretty much the same.
In my opinion, play vanilla Dark Souls II if you want a FUN singleplayer experience with reasonable difficulty, or play SoTFS if you want to play online (PVP or co-op) as there's probably a larger playerbase there.

I love the Dark Souls series. They're actually some of my favorite games of all time. Therefore, it's needless to say that I love Dark Souls II. I would go as far as to say it's my favorite Souls game. After playing vanilla Dark Souls II, I'd thought, "Well, Scholar of the First Sin could only be better." I was so wrong. Scholar of the First Sin is what you'd expect, Dark Souls II with some supposed upgrades. Some mechanic updates regarding co-op, PVP, etc. They also decide to give you the DLC with the game, maybe trying to do something like Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition. My largest problem was how they changed the world. After playing vanilla, I'd expect to know where everything is. Instead, they'd decided to change enemy spawn locations, which would be okay. The manner that they'd put enemies around the world made it feel like artificial difficulty. It's as if there's no way to not fight every single enemy in your way. *looks at Iron Keep* I don't really mind everything else, as it's pretty much the same. In my opinion, play vanilla Dark Souls II if you want a FUN singleplayer experience with reasonable difficulty, or play SoTFS if you want to play online (PVP or co-op) as there's probably a larger playerbase there.