too big for its own good. the open world design does not leave much room for the tight, interconnected level design everyone has yearned for since the first half of dark souls 1. a few locations show fromsoft still has the ability to make levels like that, with areas like lyndell capital or stormveil castle coming to mind, but overall going for a more traditional "open world" gives the same feeling of quanity over quality that can be seen in most other aspects of the game.

the wide variety of builds, and weapons, and spells is great, but none are any deeper or more complex than something seen 10 years earlier in dark souls 1. the large amount of reused bosses, the repetitive and copy pasted ruins and catacomb dungeons, it all does fromsoft a real disservice, compared to other small sections of the game where you can see they still have that 'magic'.

it's still good tho