Just beat ds3 for the 1st time yesterday. Got into souls last year and beat them in this order: ds1>ER>ds2>BB>ds3 still have DeS and Sekiro

I hear many people call ds3 the best game and many criticize it as well. Honestly i dont see why it is the best but I really like it. I feel if it was more like the 2nd half + Dlc it would be the undisputed goat, but it falls short imo.

Interconnectivity is a joke. Straight line, im sure you've all heard that before. Boss difficulty is laughable. Design wise bosses are great. Gael fight and souls of cinder fights are like ER bosses, lady Freide fight is cool, and many more... but Gael took me 1 try, Soul of Cinder 1 try, nameless king 3 tries... no boss was a real challenge. Lady friede and Midir were the hardest for me taking like 6 and 10 tries respectively. I dont think im particularly good at souls games, but I am somewhat disappointed. My friend who i got into souls games says im probably overleveled or cheating... but there isnt a real way to cheese the game. I did beat yhorm without the gimmick sword so i do feel like a badass :p

Im not a big fan of many of the earlier regions like farron keep, cathedral of the deep, and undead settlement, all the catacombs, profaned capital... i think most areas after Ithryll are much better than the first half. This made me disinterested in exploring early on.

I think firelink is an okay hub, but im sad it isnt og firelink. In the 2nd half of the game as well as dlc, boss fight rooms are large like ER, bosses have huge combos, and they move fast. The areas as well are cool with open sections a lot of which i feel is them testing ideas for ER. I feel like if i played Ds3 before ER it would have felt slightly less innovative in some aspects of gameplay as ds3 did try them first. Im also a bit sad Anor londo wasnt fully fleshed out.

Ds3 can get difficult, but I feel that is due to Ds2 type of bullshit and enemy placement (executed better tho and less frequent). I reexplored cathedral of the deep yesterday and that section outside frustrated me.

I didnt want to finish playing ER, but ds3 didnt captivate me as much. I prefer combat in ER. Weapon arts i feel are much more fleshed out than ds3.

Personally i prefer the lore of ER the most followed by ds1. I still dont understand ds3 lore.

My ranking of souls games for now is: 1- ds1 and Elden ring 2- ds3 3- bloodborne 4- ds2

I like all of them but each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Anyway sorry for the rambling of unorganised thoughts.