What's so rough about DeS? Besides some QoL shit, the combat was already excellent, game runs well on PS3, overall level design is much better than DS3, the NPC's are much better, the soundtrack is better, of course some levels and bosses will be worse than others, but that's the same for any game in the series and imo the best bosses of DeS trumps DS3 bosses, although the bosses of the latter are most refined mechanically, the aspects around them are lacking, i'll try to exemplify:
I said a couple of posts before how i disliked the copypasted
gimmick, and not only because it was copypasted, the execution was much worse, in DeS you had that giant flying manta ray god called "Storm King" in a very atmospheric open arena, it gave such an epic feeling when you find the sword and overcome the enemy with such overwhelming power. In Dark Souls 3, it's just a regular big boss in a regular arena that had no reason to use this gimmick again.
DeS is rough in the sense that it's very hit and miss in most of its aspects (except for the uniformly excellent art direction ), which makes sense, given that it's the first game in the series, and the most experimental. Level design is good (1-1, 1-3, 3-1, 4-1) until it's bad (2-2, 5-1) or mediocre (2-1, 3-2, 5-2). Bosses can be really good, like Flamelurker, really bad, like Armored Spider, and a lot are just weird gimmicks not executed particularly well. Unfortunately From never really learned how to design good gimmick bosses for the Souls combat system.
The Storm King example actually works for my purposes, because I consider it to be a truly awful fight. Not only does it waste your time with the small mantas, but then you're forced to wait until the boss circles over the sea. There's nothing fun about avoiding its attacks or using the sword to hit it. I would consider it on par with Bed of Chaos in terms of awfulness if it had a similarly long corpse run. Yhorm, in comparison, is at least to the point, and somewhat threatening.
This, as usual, likely comes down to whether you played DeS as your first Souls game, but I do think it comes up somewhat short when stripped of the "first in the series" excuse. I will say though, that in the context of BB and DS3, I appreciate that it's an actual adventure game and not just an edgy combat simulator.
DeS is a flawed gem, just like DS1. IMO it deserves all the praise it gets.
I don't think anyone is really overrating BB, for example I haven't seen a single post anywhere claiming it's the best in the series. Didn't play it myself but afaik the community was massively disappointed with the PvP and chalice dungeons. Still, I've seen a few playthroughs by ENB and Cowboy and it felt fresh and inspired, especially the DLC. I could absolutely believe it was directed by Miyazaki himself. With DS3 it's straigh up out of the question.
You won't see much of that on the Codex, but in the quagmire of stupidity that is the larger Souls community, it's actually a fairly popular belief. That in itself would be fine, but those people are absolutely incapable of acknowledging any of the game's many flaws. Also, I get extremely triggered every time the Lovecraft inspiration is discussed, especially given that BB actively subverts it, and essentially stars benevolent aliens with tentacles.
In any case, the point remains that much of the criticism of how DS3's combat plays out applies just as easily to Bloodborne, and no amount of gothic horror window dressing can change that.
Finally, can we drop the fucking retarded Miyazaki cult? The man directed DS3, it says so in the credits. He did a shitty job of some parts, just as he did in his previous games, and likely only made the game because Namco wanted to milk the cash cow even further. But hey, if this makes you so butthurt, then note that Tanimura was co-director, maybe you can blame all the bad on him again.
Miyazaki cultists denying the cult exists while desperately twisting themselves into knots to explain how the horrible, horrible DS3 couldn't have possibly been made by their god-emperor. Thanks for proving my point for me, bros.
