Really good game. I dont have much more to say or anything necessarily new to add that I haven´t written before in the reviews of the previous two Dark Souls games. And that´s good and bad at the same time. It mantains the best elements of the series and it does it better than Dark Souls 2, it still holds up graphically with some great visual design (though the overall theme of the game is very gray, which can make certain areas look and feel quite bland), it streamlines some gameplay elements, it brings back the "circular" or shortcut-based level design from the first one and it manages to freshen up the combat by making it a little bit faster, which after having finished both Bloodborne and Sekiro is a very welcome change. I don´t tend to play with magic in these games, but i hear that the new FP based system is very well liked, and i´ve seen that they kept it in Elden Ring as well so i´ll assume that it´s a positive change too.

Honestly the negatives I see in this are few and very personal. Maybe it´s because I have finished 5 From Soft games in 4 months, each one of them for the first time (they are rather addicting what can I say) and at this point this one didn´t offer a memorable experience as much as i wanted to. I´ve just beaten it and I have a hard time remembering the areas and levels, yes some bossess are memorable and fun to fight, but maybe I have finally gotten good because I can only recall one that presented me with a real challenge. The story is even more nonexistant than in previous games. I mean, i get that is all built by lore through hidden texts and stuff like that, i like that, but i also like to understand the objective. And NPCs are pretty much impossible to find and follow their questlines without a guide, which i get that it´s a series staple as well, but whereas in previous games I could interact with them even without doing their quests and they would show up every so often as you progressed through the levels, here they basically just disappear with no explanation. The levels still have their shitty moments, plenty of locations, enemies, bosses and characters are just retreads of what we´ve already seen. But thematically it is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy which i´m thanful for. I hope they put Dark Souls to rest for good and keep experimenting with this formula in other ways as they´ve shown that they can do so well.

Overall as I stated before, I really like this game and I really like this franchise, it offers something that no other franchise offers, I still find it tremendously fun and addicting, and I hope more people get to enjoy them as well. I can see this one being someones first From Soft game because it´s more modern feeling, polished and less clunky/janky than the previous entries in the franchise, and graphics look good, people seem to like that. And that seems like a good choice honestly, yeah the older games might seem worse and harder to play, but whichever game gets you through the door i´m sure you´ll end up just as hooked as me. Just buy it and play it, it´s worth every cent. I´m a dumbass and paid like 40 bucks to get the Deluxe version with the DLCs and i don´t regret it. It took me 50 hours to beat, no need to wait for a sale, it´s still a bargain at full price.

It´s a pity about the online though. As i understand it the servers will be back up soon, but still, if you are very into the PvP or Coop scene maybe it is worth to wait. I personally don´t engage in the multiplayer element of these games so i don´t really care about that. The only From Soft game i´ve played with an online connection was Bloodborne, and the messages are rather annoying, and i only tried summoning a player for help once which was fun while it lasted but a true pain in the ass to set up, so I don´t think you are missing much by playing offline.