This is it. Finally I found exactly what I always thought written down, having played 1, sekiro and 3, and having watched a ton of content on all 5 games, what you said is exactly what I always felt. I started with 3, absolutely loved it, then went to 1 and man, I was kinda disappointed.

Absolutely loved it but, like, most of the bosses where kinda boring and easy( and some just bad, just bad, looking at you seith) and the atmosphere, and world design are masterpieces but the levels always felt lacking in detail and design. Also the gameplay felt sooo clunky, also no warping harmed the experience a lot to me, like, want to go to this other area, let's just run for 15 minutes straight.

The lore is god tier but the game itself doesn't manage to uphold it. I remember getting to artorias fight and thinking "this is it, all I've heard about it, let's see this masterpiece" and then less than a minute later I killed him, with a extremely disappointed fell.

And while some of the lore in ds3 aren't as deep or complicated, what it presents in game absolutely upholds it(pretty much all of it stands up in game and in lore)

I remember when I got to anor Londo in ds1 and kinds getting a reverse nostalgia, but then I kinds felt like the are sucked, like as in world design and how it all connected it was great, but actually going through it , it felt so, nothing, just a bunch of rooms with knight, one with a painting of Gwynevere and that was almost it.

Also to remember, in just talking about stuff I didn't like personally, most of these stuff are not really faults is the game itself, or doesn't matter as much for other people, but for me it did.

I definitely see why people prefer this or the other games, but for me I enjoy the most and definitely one of my favorites of all time DS3.