Amazing game and I think the best one of the original Dark Souls trilogy from gameplay perspective.

It has breathtaking views and scenery that is almost the same level as Elden Ring, I made countless screenshots from views in Anor Londo, Lothric Castle, Archdragon Peak and Irtythill Valley. The artististic implementation of each level is good, and level design is also decent, without unlogical locations like in DS2.

I liked every boss in the game, they are all balanced and very fair in terms of hitboxes, timings - their attack intentions are very clear and even small puzzle bosses like Ancient Wyvern are easy to understand. There were some issues with the camera with some large bosses, but they are neglible and FromSoftware seems to explicitly make camera your second enemy, as we see from Elden Ring DLC.

Most importantly for me - it does not make previous games mistakes, fixing really dumb mechanics, present in previous games that annoyed me there, like placing bonfires really generously, and placing them near bosses or providing shortcuts that really make any boss runback take not more than a minute, which is not the case for DS1 and DS2. Enemies are diverse and placed really well, without hordes attacking and breaking your camera as in DS2. You can really see how FromSoftware, little by little, improves game experience with each new release, how Sekiro and Elden Ring improved such utility tasks even more (with Statues of Marika or even more generous checkpoint placement).

As with all other games of that developer, the music and sound design are also very well made, they never disappoint in that regard.

The things I didn't like are minor and opinionated:
- Overuse of fog walls to hide secret passages, sometimes multiple in a row. There are a lot them in this game, some leading to really rich or lore-improtant locations. Without messages from other players, I would miss 90% of them. I do consider this to be a partially lazy game-design mechanic, as usually there is little clue that a fog wall is present somewhere. I bought the game to enjoy full content of it, but if it's hidden that way, I am not liking that much.
- Very cryptic lore and story communication. I do understand this is FromSoftware style and such lore messaging was one of the core principles of Dark Souls series, still I did not understand most of it in the game, even by reading item descriptions. I watched the credits roll without significant emotional impact, which I had for example in Sekiro or Elden Ring, because I just do not understand if what I did is good, bad or something in between. For that reason I focused mostly on enjoying gameplay and locations. omitting the plot or storyline mostly.

In summary, it's for me the perfect and most finished true Dark Souls game, that I really enjoyed, and definetely recommended to play.

Amazing game and I think the best one of the original Dark Souls trilogy from gameplay perspective. It has breathtaking views and scenery that is almost the same level as Elden Ring, I made countless screenshots from views in Anor Londo, Lothric Castle, Archdragon Peak and Irtythill Valley. The artististic implementation of each level is good, and level design is also decent, without unlogical locations like in DS2. I liked every boss in the game, they are all balanced and very fair in terms of hitboxes, timings - their attack intentions are very clear and even small puzzle bosses like Ancient Wyvern are easy to understand. There were some issues with the camera with some large bosses, but they are neglible and FromSoftware seems to explicitly make camera your second enemy, as we see from Elden Ring DLC. Most importantly for me - it does not make previous games mistakes, fixing really dumb mechanics, present in previous games that annoyed me there, like placing bonfires really generously, and placing them near bosses or providing shortcuts that really make any boss runback take not more than a minute, which is not the case for DS1 and DS2. Enemies are diverse and placed really well, without hordes attacking and breaking your camera as in DS2. You can really see how FromSoftware, little by little, improves game experience with each new release, how Sekiro and Elden Ring improved such utility tasks even more (with Statues of Marika or even more generous checkpoint placement). As with all other games of that developer, the music and sound design are also very well made, they never disappoint in that regard. The things I didn't like are minor and opinionated: - Overuse of fog walls to hide secret passages, sometimes multiple in a row. There are a lot them in this game, some leading to really rich or lore-improtant locations. Without messages from other players, I would miss 90% of them. I do consider this to be a partially lazy game-design mechanic, as usually there is little clue that a fog wall is present somewhere. I bought the game to enjoy full content of it, but if it's hidden that way, I am not liking that much. - Very cryptic lore and story communication. I do understand this is FromSoftware style and such lore messaging was one of the core principles of Dark Souls series, still I did not understand most of it in the game, even by reading item descriptions. I watched the credits roll without significant emotional impact, which I had for example in Sekiro or Elden Ring, because I just do not understand if what I did is good, bad or something in between. For that reason I focused mostly on enjoying gameplay and locations. omitting the plot or storyline mostly. In summary, it's for me the perfect and most finished true Dark Souls game, that I really enjoyed, and definetely recommended to play.