I really really loved the exploration in there, although the world might actually be TOO big; there were multiple times were I got bored of the game and stopped playing for a few weeks. I especially loved the big dungeons like Stormveil Castle, Raya Lucaria, or Miquella's Haligtree.
I played the whole game with sword/shield and I had fun, even more at some endgame bosses like Mohg, Malenia, or Radagon; But I think I still prefer Sekiro's gameplay, which is the only other FromSoft game I've played. I get the appeal of letting the player choose their own build and style, but I often feel overwhelmed when there's many options like classes, weapons, skills ...
While the world is beautiful and feels carefully handcrafted, it still suffers from classic openworld problems : having the same points of interest copypasted multiple times with slight variations and scattered across the map, fighting the same ten minibosses in catacombs and caves ...
Speaking of openworld, I don't know if this is a hot take or not but I feel like it's really not perfect for these kinds of games with hard bosses with patterns to learn. I thought a lot about the balancing of the game during my playthrough : I never farmed EXP, but there was a whole part of the game where I was clearly overpowered. And when the game became hard again, I kept wondering whenever I struggled against a boss if I needed to just get good or if I was literally underpowered. These things don't really happen in a more linear game.
Overall I really really enjoyed this game, but reading about this actually being a revolution, I just don't see it. It's """"just"""" a very great game to me