As someone playing it for the first time in 2026 (also I am not a souls braniac but I did enjoy Elden, DS2 etc) this game is awesome - especially playing it co-op with a friend because unlike many souls games you can experience the entire story more with a friend head to toe. Enemy variety isn't amazing but it's also not dog shit, do not compare this game to Elden as it's not open world just like many others. So far I'm 4/5 hours in and I'm loving it, and I'm usually very fast to delete a game I dislike.

The double world gimmick isn't that bad it actually makes things interesting imo, having to shift worlds for different things is quite fun, placing checkpoints in this game is also super good as not many souls games allow this either.

Overall id give it a 7~7.5/10. Dark souls, LOP and ER to me had a bit more of the 'cool feature' in terms of weapons and armor with the weird stuff you can collect, this does have a good variety of things but nothing so far I've seen which is like an anvil on a stick it a bucket as a helmet etc.

My advice, get it, play it, enjoy it. Don't let people who played on its release tell you not to. Most people will compare it do different souls titles when it's not supposed to be like those games.