combat is pretty fantastic once the dark souls habits wear off. level design and atmosphere not nearly as good as dark souls (no moment sticks out to me like, say, anor londo in ds1 or irithyll in ds3) but the bosses are up to par for sure. also has a very tragic tone like the best fromsoft games. here, the main theme seems to be about accepting death (isshin and kuro) as opposed to trying to hold on to that which must die (genichiro). 4 or 4.5