I wanna start by saying, there will never be a fair comparison to the first playthrough i did of this game. That was a totally unique experience and it took hold of my life for a solid month. It was an amazing 80 hours of video games that I remember very fondly. Every subsequent playthrough of this game, while still captivating, makes me enjoy this game less.

I think this is a very well made open world game that suffers from its "souls" qualities strangely enough. Everything up to leyndell feels perfectly executed and balanced with the true highlight in my eyes being both stormveil and volcano manor. These areas harken back to classic soulsbourne design both in their layout but also their verticality. The bosses in all these places also feel like legitimate bosses, bar morgotts sudden affinity for string cancelling like hes fucking option selecting a jump kick in a mortal kombat game. Bosses and late game spikes is where this game really starts to fall apart for me.

Once you hit mountaintop of the giants the game becomes a free for all of fuckery. Zamorian knights welcome you to your first ruins on the snowcaps and send a clear message of whats to come. Enemies are now easily 2 shotting you with 50 vigor, and the areas themselves become bloated arenas to stream with on torrents back. I never found fire giant to be particularly difficult for what its worth, I just found him boring. I love lookin at his tootsies as i slowly whittle down his enourmous health bar.

So you finish that area and get sent to Farum Azula. The first look at it is awe inspiring. Crumbling ruins held up by gigantic tornados echoing the era before the erdtree. So what do you get then? Beast men that have a 6 chain combo that can melt you if you take 2 hits. This becomes yet another area to scrambe and get your shit before being met with
1) godskin due
2) malekith. (fuck this bossfight)
Nothing needs to be said ab the duo that hasnt already been said. Summon and sleep them. Malekith on the other hand was infuriating. His first phase chains incantations and swipes with nearly flawless dodging and the smallest windows of punishes. His second phase is EVEN more tedious with him slinging through the collumns like some spiderman wannabe while youre health bar decreases exponentially when hit with his red blade attacks. so much fun!

Returning to the burnt capital you do a gauntlet of FP spam the man, chain combo godfrey, and a duo fight that perfectly embodies how I feel about this game. Gideon is just a meme fight to me, ive never really struggled, but it is funny to see him chain rings of light, giant glintstone and then rykards rancor without dropping a sweat. I find the first phase of godfreys fight blanaced as the game has been teaching you to jump over certain attacks, his second phase is what drives me mad. Get hit by one horrible hitbox grab? good luck trying to get half your health back as he zooms around chaining 3 attack strings into his 7 hit combo string!

And so comes the final boss. Radagon is a beautiful dance between the two strongest warriors in the lands. He can cancel his attacks much like every boss, but they dont leave you with no health, and IF they do, that big holy lightning bolt getting your ass is entirely your fault. Your reward for learning this incredible fight is the most drawn out, stupid end game fight in this series. Homing missles, sword swipes, elden stars, jumping over three circles, good job tarnished, now do it again because the dumbass is all the way on the other side again. I dont even find this fight challenging, its just tedious and boring.

I think theres a lot to be said of the freedom this game gives you. You can make any weapon work as long as you have the build to back it for the most part. Summons are there to help you out of the buttfuckery that this game presents you with, but it often trivializes these encounters, so it feels unearned. Theres a very clear split in how to play this game and its why I am so conflicted on it. For this fourth run I tried soloing as many bosses as I could without losing my mind but with Malenia, horaux loux, malekith, mohg, I was so upset with the design of these fights I summoned for my sanity. This world feels so rewarding in that you really can explore everything that you see, and chances are youll get something okay out of it, but its the spectacle of it all that upsets me. Fromsoft really made these bosses feel like they are gods fighitng for their lives, but in that process created a wildly unbalanced game.

All this being said I really cannot wait for the DLC because it will be that first experience that I will cherish, much like my first character in the base game. I am sure I will find similar complaints in the DLC but its the world I love in this game, not necessarily the gameplay itself.