The trilogy and the souls series in general is pretty much the peak of the third person melee-focused 3D action RPG genre and the supreme jack of all trades of everything i like about video games and everything a good video game should be: simple but satisfying combat, a challenge, infinite replayability and customization thanks to the insane build variety, cool level design, cool boss fights, great enemy variety, cool music, memorable characters... Other games have better combat systems but have poor gameplay variety or enemy variety while others have better level design but have poor combat systems or bad boss fights (for example) but this series offers and amazing all-round experience which is very difficult to replicate, I think this is the reason why the "Souls games ruined gaming for me" meme exist.

And I'm not kidding about the build variety. The Souls games may not have the fast, combo-focused combat that characterizes the character action games, but they do have an insane variety of playstyles, with 18-28 weapon classes depending on the game (counting elden ring) with individual differences in the moveset for each weapon without taking into account the different upgrade routes, magic, miracles, pyromancy, hexes, all types of shields, throwable items, armorsets, rings, and unique mechanics such as off-hand weapons and Powerstance (for the love of god, you can use shields as offensive weapons if you feel like it) It is obvious that this section is more than filled out.

The series has my favorite stamina system in videogames: is in the perfect balance between not be too restrictive and not be too permissive, covering all your ofensive and defensive options (all forms of attacking, blocking with shields, parrying, dodge, running, even your weight affects stamina regeneration and has a negative stamina mechanic) instead like in most games where the stamina bar is either an artificial limitation, a bar for some special moves or just for sprinting and climbing, in this games it's such an integral part of the experience and it has so much synergy with the rest of the mechanics that something is lost without it.
And a little nitpick but I like the status effect system, having a gauge that slowly fills up per area of contact or per hit is an amazing way to implement status ailments in a melee action-rpg without resorting to nasty RNG or making it instant, more action-rpg should do it and if you hate moviegames dark souls games are pretty much the antitesis of those.

No wonder it ended up creating an entire subgenre of action RPG and his mainstream success is probably part of the reason why we're seeing more melee action RPGs in general, as this franchise has shown the industry that those types of games have a great potential yet to be discovered.

It is really weird how awkward and messy the gameplay is, being kenshiro unable to dash properly, lock on enemies and "grabbing" enemies.
The plot is a butchered version of the manga with very little to add having known characters do cameos to never be seen again and new characters being cheap plot devices.
The progression in the game consist on going from point A to B walking either the whole city to the point that the game makes you sleep on one single chapter I shit you not three times in order to make the game last longer.
And finally and not least important the fact that the game is basically empty, you have a few finger shattering minigames, a big map to explore with your car to farm materials endlessly and 80 substories which appear really boring.

Let this review be a testament of how much I fucking hate this game and how bad It is