I enjoyed Dark Souls 2 SotfS a lot last playthrough because the levels are excellently designed from a combat challenge/pacing POV, there’s lots of alternate routing options, and the bosses are bite-sized little encounters that don’t overstay their welcome.
I understand what Toups was saying comparing it to Anodyne 2 or mysterious NES games, but those games have that aesthetic much more strongly than DkS2. Because in parts DkS2, like the rest of the series, is also trying for the exact opposite (realism/coherence/uncomplicated beauty). So I think the SB contrarian framing that the disjointedness is compellingly dreamlike is trying too hard to construct a positive aesthetic in the abstract rather than accurately describing the experience.
So instead of trying to savor some deep aesthetic paradox here, it seems more straightforward to me to just put things this way: “if you can set your expectations low on the coherence of the artwork and world design, DkS2 is good otherwise”