There's a bunch of random enemy camps and patrols, a bunch of random ruins piled up with some EPIC LOOTZORZ, you see a bunch of enemies repeated as if the game was an MMO, and the topography at least of the first zone is incredibly boring even if it is pretty.
Sure, maybe it's the bestest open-world game out there because it has a minimalist hud. But open-world games are generally fucking boring, and when you compare a more curated souls level to this shit, I don't really see the upside. Against Tree Sentinel, he has safe spots that will randomly become unsafe because of extremely slight differences in how steep a slope he's on, which both made him a pain in the ass to kill and made obvious that the overworld isn't a proper arena for him. What originally sold me over was that someone suggested the open world "had the souls touch," which really doesn't feel that way.
The levels and dungeons proper seem fine thusfar, but the world is... just as boring as every open-world game is. First proper boss is a lot of fun, and already plays with unusual timing to punish roll spammers. Like all the souls excepting bloodborne, it seems to go easy on people who bitch out and use shields, but at least heavy attacks are now way more worthwhile of a risk and the shield counterattack is cool.
Was it? I don't really know. I usually start deprived, and I've never bought more consumables than a handful of arrows. It's not so much that the crafting feels mandatory, but rather that I now expect most item drops in the game to be pointless crafting items that I don't really care about rather than something cool.
