I'll preface this by saying, it is a GOOD game by all modern gaming standards. However I have major gripes that make me rate this game only 6/10. I have close to 12k hours across soulsbourne games between platforms, and after all that time here is the conclusion I've come to.

This game is a puddle 1 mile wide but a foot deep. The landscape was made to be absolutely huge with great distances, all to justify the existence of their prized gimmick: the horse. Yes, Dark Souls BUT WITH HORSE! Amazing, until you realize that the horse adds nothing to the game except the ability to traverse it quicker, which there wouldn't need to be if it was smaller.

Why would they make it smaller and not have a horse, wouldn't there be less content? Ah, but you see, the map is laid out stretched so thin that exploration often feels like you're crossing 3 miles of barren fields to only find a tier 3 rune or some other fairly worthless consumable item. After several playthroughs I realized it was a complete waste of time to explore the vast majority of the game, leaving the clear paths between points of interest rarely results in a worthwhile find.

But there's so many different caves and dungeons to explore! Yes, there is a bunch, except there is basically 1 dungeon with 1 boss that was copy/pasted around the map like 5 times with the only difference being a slightly tougher move set from the boss. Literally just reusing the same assets to spam around their comically large map that they failed to fill with unique and meaningful content.

But at least the combat is good right? Right???
No.
This has some of the worst combat of any game of this kind period. Don't listen to what anyone else tells you, the combat is definitively terrible in comparison to previous souls games.
Why?
Practically EVERY boss in the game relies on what I call, Fakeout Roll-catch mechanics. These are the scary-movie equivalent of using loud noises to jumpscare you. It is an extremely cheap form of difficulty.
There is only 1 boss of note that has a FAIR but difficult moveset, and that's everyone's favorite boss, Malenia.
Yes, after 10k+ hours of souls experience, this was one of the few boss fights I genuinely enjoyed and was able to beat easily on my first try. To be fair, I did beat every boss except Elden Beast on my first try on my first blind playthrough, but none of them felt fair or fun or like a rewarding experience. It felt cheap and terrible and was so frustratingly bad that I never got that signature euphoric "I DID IT" feeling that dark souls always had before.

I almost forgot! Alongside the cheap Fakeout Roll-catch mechanics of most bosses, there is something called INPUT QUEUEING. This game has hyper-exaggerated input queueing to artificially simulate "panic" inputs. If you hit the button to roll and it doesn't, so you hit it again and again until it finally does, it doesn't matter if you stopped hitting the button the instant you began to do the action, it WILL force you to roll twice in a row. This adds nothing of value to the gameplay, this is an unnecessary feature that doesn't add to the skill of the game but adds to frustration immensely.

If 99% of your game relies on forcing inputs on you and bosses constantly have to pretend to hit you but delay it mid-swing to catch you at the end of your roll that, if you didn't roll when you did and they DID follow through with the swing the way their animation suggested, would have definitely hit you so you're punished for having good reaction time, then the combat in your game is forgettable and lazy as hell.

I'll preface this by saying, it is a GOOD game by all modern gaming standards. However I have major gripes that make me rate this game only 6/10. I have close to 12k hours across soulsbourne games between platforms, and after all that time here is the conclusion I've come to. This game is a puddle 1 mile wide but a foot deep. The landscape was made to be absolutely huge with great distances, all to justify the existence of their prized gimmick: the horse. Yes, Dark Souls BUT WITH HORSE! Amazing, until you realize that the horse adds nothing to the game except the ability to traverse it quicker, which there wouldn't need to be if it was smaller. Why would they make it smaller and not have a horse, wouldn't there be less content? Ah, but you see, the map is laid out stretched so thin that exploration often feels like you're crossing 3 miles of barren fields to only find a tier 3 rune or some other fairly worthless consumable item. After several playthroughs I realized it was a complete waste of time to explore the vast majority of the game, leaving the clear paths between points of interest rarely results in a worthwhile find. But there's so many different caves and dungeons to explore! Yes, there is a bunch, except there is basically 1 dungeon with 1 boss that was copy/pasted around the map like 5 times with the only difference being a slightly tougher move set from the boss. Literally just reusing the same assets to spam around their comically large map that they failed to fill with unique and meaningful content. But at least the combat is good right? Right??? No. This has some of the worst combat of any game of this kind period. Don't listen to what anyone else tells you, the combat is definitively terrible in comparison to previous souls games. Why? Practically EVERY boss in the game relies on what I call, Fakeout Roll-catch mechanics. These are the scary-movie equivalent of using loud noises to jumpscare you. It is an extremely cheap form of difficulty. There is only 1 boss of note that has a FAIR but difficult moveset, and that's everyone's favorite boss, Malenia. Yes, after 10k+ hours of souls experience, this was one of the few boss fights I genuinely enjoyed and was able to beat easily on my first try. To be fair, I did beat every boss except Elden Beast on my first try on my first blind playthrough, but none of them felt fair or fun or like a rewarding experience. It felt cheap and terrible and was so frustratingly bad that I never got that signature euphoric "I DID IT" feeling that dark souls always had before. I almost forgot! Alongside the cheap Fakeout Roll-catch mechanics of most bosses, there is something called INPUT QUEUEING. This game has hyper-exaggerated input queueing to artificially simulate "panic" inputs. If you hit the button to roll and it doesn't, so you hit it again and again until it finally does, it doesn't matter if you stopped hitting the button the instant you began to do the action, it WILL force you to roll twice in a row. This adds nothing of value to the gameplay, this is an unnecessary feature that doesn't add to the skill of the game but adds to frustration immensely. If 99% of your game relies on forcing inputs on you and bosses constantly have to pretend to hit you but delay it mid-swing to catch you at the end of your roll that, if you didn't roll when you did and they DID follow through with the swing the way their animation suggested, would have definitely hit you so you're punished for having good reaction time, then the combat in your game is forgettable and lazy as hell.