it's good. story is good, gameplay is good. audio design & graphic design is good.

the only downside is the PvP aspect. which sounds like a super duper hot take, but it really isn't. why?
i play the game, i loved to PvP, invasions & back when summon signs were popping post-Pontiff.
it feels so much worse nowadays, people are instant-estusing, moveswapping, using Honest Merchant to max out their Estus' in the first parts of the game. Which, i have myself witnessed in the past few weeks more than commonly happen. And i haven't even PvP'd in the ~120 Soul level range. Mainly around the 60-90s. And because of how these invasions have gone, i haven't bothered to try the Undead Arena PvP content, since why should i bother in the actual "Sweaty" parts of PvP if people already overdo in invasions?

Obviously, the entire "git gud" meme exists. But why bother getting good in a game where people abuse exploits and give themselves an unfair advantage? Might be a hot take! Idk. Sweats overpowering newer players in regular content just shoo's upcoming PvPers because of this. But that's just me!

However just playing the game is still fun and good times as it is, even offline. Many things to try out, buncha cool weapons with their fancy schmancy weapon arts.. And apparently there are some sort of Overhaul mods for the game? Which you'd have to be offline ingame to play so the Fromsoft weird wacky Social construct doesn't bar you from playing with others.

it's good. story is good, gameplay is good. audio design & graphic design is good. the only downside is the PvP aspect. which sounds like a super duper hot take, but it really isn't. why? i play the game, i loved to PvP, invasions & back when summon signs were popping [spoiler]post-Pontiff.[/spoiler] it feels so much worse nowadays, people are instant-estusing, moveswapping, using Honest Merchant to max out their Estus' in the first parts of the game. Which, i have myself witnessed in the past few weeks more than commonly happen. And i haven't even PvP'd in the ~120 Soul level range. Mainly around the 60-90s. And because of how these invasions have gone, i haven't bothered to try the Undead Arena PvP content, since why should i bother in the actual "Sweaty" parts of PvP if people already overdo in invasions? Obviously, the entire "git gud" meme exists. But why bother getting good in a game where people abuse exploits and give themselves an unfair advantage? Might be a hot take! Idk. Sweats overpowering newer players in regular content just shoo's upcoming PvPers because of this. But that's just me! However just playing the game is still fun and good times as it is, even offline. Many things to try out, buncha cool weapons with their fancy schmancy weapon arts.. And apparently there are some sort of Overhaul mods for the game? Which you'd have to be offline ingame to play so the Fromsoft weird wacky Social construct doesn't bar you from playing with others.