It’s all about art direction and style. From what I’ve played in DD2, it’s very much the first game but more complex NPCs, which is my own bottleneck. My poor i7-4790k can’t handle staying in Vernworth for more than 5 mins lmao. I do like how much attention the art direction got in the castle, was legit jaw dropping first glance. The graphics definitely isn’t that much of an issue.
I personally still vastly prefer Elden Ring’s wonderfully twisted style, same with anything From puts out. And I can play them on my potato.