- the lore is a complete rehash of dark souls 1 - you get a boss soul and it reads one of two things:
a) this boss soul belongs to something, but no one remembers what it was anymore because it was long long ago
b) 'member this lord boss from ds1? i member
- the story is boring at best, and I felt it completely ruined dark souls 3 because it reinforced cycles so hard it basically became 100% canon and there was no way to escape it. I don't remember Dark Souls 1 ever hinting at cycles even.
- Someone has comprehension problems.
Dark Souls 2 goes out of it's way to mock the first game's story and lore, let alone it being a rehash.
Have you even listened to Aldia when he spoke?
It's your beloved piece of shit DS3 that is purely rehash and fan service.
b)remember gwyn? the final boss is almost identical, wow
remember dark sun gwyndolin and nito? aldrich has gwyndolin's crown and nito's weapon!
remember the storm ruler from demon's souls? its literally in 3 with the exact same name! wow
First - Story and lore are different, you fucking moron.
Second - how does Dark Souls 3 rehash dark souls 1? The game advances the first game's plot, and you just gave yourself some examples of it: it kills off characters from DS1 - namely Gwyndolin, Quelana and the Fair Lady - to start with.
It sets up the setting for the game by telling you what is happening, and what happened before the game started, just like dark souls 1 - the flame is fading and all the lands are converging at the end of the world.
It introduces new characters that have their own arc, some of them (like Siegward) are the complete opposite of Dark Souls 1's version of the character quest.
It gives sequence to characters that were previously left hanging:
1 - Gwynevere and her entire new family. Admittedly, Gwynevere's fate is never revealed, but we still got to know more from her
2 - Gwyn's First Born. You meet the man yourself, you know what happened to him, you know why he was banned.
3 - Kaathe/Frampt. You learn that they are not an exclusive phenomenon to Lordran, and had a role to play in the fall of Lothric and the Angelic Faith that formed. Again, we never find out what they or their motivations were, but that's kind of like asking for the identity of G-Man. I don't think any answer would satisfy.
All the bosses in the game are lore and story relevant characters, some extremely important that help you understand the big "twist" of the game - like Iudex/Champion Gundyr and the Untended Graves/Firelink Shrine/Ludleth of Courland and its relationship with the rest of the world.
As to your point about the Storm Ruler, I guess Dark Souls 1 is a complete rehash as well since it reuses the Moonlight Greatsword, Patches, Crestfallen Warrior, Ostrava, Acolyte of God, among other ideas.
Seems like the criteria for labelling a game as a rehash around here is "Does the
sequel have the same characters? If yes, it's a rehash."
Newsflash - sequels usually have the same characters as the prequels.
Having said that, Dark Souls 2 and 3 should never have been made, and Dark Souls 1 never needed any sequel, just like Demon's Souls and Bloodborne don't need any sequel. But it was part of the contract, and as a conclusion, with the exception of Primordial Serpents and Velka, I think the Ringed City served perfectly well, with the final boss fight being almost poetic in the way it has 2 absolute nobodies fighting at the end of the world. It's a shame however that it did not implement a new ending.