I know a lot of people hate on ds2 but it’s honestly a good game. It has its faults. It’s definitely the weakest title, but it’s still a banger if you think of it in a vacuum instead of comparing it to other FromSouls games. If you like the genre, I highly recommend ds3. It is (imo) the most polished by far. I like it better than Elden Ring but that might be a hotter take.

The short answer is yes. A high rpm HDD like a Western Digital Black or a Seagate Barracuda will game just fine. Obviously your performance will vary depending on the game but it’s never going to be unplayable. Faster load times are nice but I have never seen a load screen take longer than a 30 ish seconds at most, even on newer titles.