Well, I just beat Margit, so I guess it's as good a time as any to take a break and write down my thoughts. Full spoilers of that boss fight and the antecedent areas ahead.
-In keeping with our tradition of doing everything bass ackwards, I'm going to start with the last bit of content I cleared, Margit. So, this is the first "real" boss (that knight guy in the tutorial cave not even counting as a proper boss even by Asylum Demon standards), and I gotta say, this might well be the most difficult first boss of the modern From games (depends on whether you consider Shigenori or Gyoubu Oniwa es the "real" first boss of Sekiro). The only real contender it has is maybe Gascoine, and I do think that the latter makes for a better first boss overall, but I think Margit is just the tougher fight, and by a good margin.
This guy has a lot of nasty tricks under his belt. For one thing, he does the full Dark Souls 3 bit, complete with long combos, a second phase, a large weapon and model, and a considerable degree of durability by the standards of the point of the point of the game you find him (nothing I fought in the overworld came even close to being as durable, not even the "overworld bosses" that I beat while exploring). He has a ranged option in the form of some "light daggers" that he throws, and this can be quite annoying, as he uses them when jumping out of the way when you try to get behind him (yes, he does that) and, perhaps more aggravatingly, he can throw a couple of them while you are healing. And the AI seems to be preternaturally good at timing the throw right when you start healing. He can be parried, but even with my budding Dex build it wasn't really worth it at this point. Dodging and slashing is how I got him.
He is certainly a noticeable difficulty spike, nothing else that I had faced in the game until that point came even close, and I had explored and fought quite a bit. It's almost as if From is telling the player: "See, we did not casualize it, we didn't sell out." In any case, I wouldn't call him cheesy or unfair. If you've played Soulslikes before, you know the drill. Solid boss fight overall, even if not particularly creative. Certainly worth remarking on at the very least, and if this is a sample of what's to come in terms of bosses, I'm intrigued (if also a bit worried that they will not stray too far from the DS3 school of boss design).
-The overworld is surprisingly good, especially considering that this is FS's first crack at this kind of design. It's definitely more like Dragon's Dogma's overworld than that of TES or BOTW so far. Not a bad thing at all, though minidungeons spread across the landscape a la Morrowind would be nice.
However, we do have enemy camps, and they are very good. Unlike the enemy camps of BOTW or Dragon's Dogma, the ones that I have seen here so far are not like little islands in the middle of an open space with some - almost decorative - earthworks/buildings/ruins thrown in. They are decently sprawling, have twists and turns with chokepoints that have guards and dogs, some even make good use of elevation and terrain, with firebombers placed atop large rocks overlooking chokepoints. There is one section with a giant protecting a barricade as crossbowmen fire at you.
In other words, a lot of that classic Dark Souls synergy between level and encounter design, just incorporated into an overworld. And it works very well, in part because the camps and positions have a very "wargamey" (for the lack of a better term) feel, in the sense of feeling a lot like what a squad of knights and footmen would set up as a defensive position. That adds a plausibility and immersion and makes them feel more like parts of the world, even if at the end of the day, this is very much Dark Souls-style fantasy; complete with that surreal, dreamlike vibe.
I have explored the areas around the lake, and also travelled northeast about as far as the undead hunter NPC that warns you against going into the town with the ghosts. I already mentioned the larger encounters, and there is plenty of them and they are fun. But there are also small groups of enemies you come across while exploring. I was very pleased in this regard, as they seem to have taken a page out of Dragon's Dogma's book and expanded the enemy variety in interesting ways. The flying enemies are more interesting and have better physics than in previous games. The giant bats are fun to fight and even the dragonflies add some variety despite being easy to beat. The land octopus was a a fun optional fight, though that was more of an "overworld boss", and quite different from other enemies so far. There are a few giants you can opt to fight strewn across the landscape, and they seem a bit more sophisticated in their moveset than previous versions of the basic giant. There is some weird giant dude banging his head against the floor in a bridge. He seemed tough at first but went down rather easily.
Most of the overworld seems to consist of enemies and loot, so it's definitely closer to Dragon's Dogma than something like The Witcher 3, which focuses more on things like quests, story, and NPCs. There are a few NPCs and shops around, but they don't seem to be the focus. That said, there are a few interesting secrets and bits of content you come across, with one of the highlights for me being the time I followed the footprints of a ghostly entity as I snuck past giant bears and repelled monkey-like bandits until it led me to some treasure. There is definitely some charm and creativity here, even if I don't expect it to top Morrowind in this area any time soon.
It should also be noted that the non-boss enemies and encounters do feel easier than in the Soulsborne games proper, even if I find them much more interesting than the ones in Sekiro. This, however, has little to do with "casualization" and pandering to journos, and more to do with the very nature of expansive overworlds. The old encounters were so tricky because the space to maneuver offered in a dungeon crawler is rather restricted. Things are quite different in an open area, and the dev can't easily funnel the player into traps, ambushes, and tactically disadvantageous situations. I suspect this will not change dramatically in the coming areas, as I think it is just a feature of open worlds. The enemy designs themselves and the power curve seem reasonable so far.
-The itemization and character progression seem fine so far, though it's a bit too early to tell if this will rival something like Dark Souls 2 on that front. Even so, the itemization clearly jives very well with the exploration, and it feels rewarding early on to even find things like Golden Runes and Smithing Stones. The Warrior set seems rather solid, and these dual scimitars have a very strong dual slash attack similar to that of the Sellsword Twinblades in DS3. I hope that they aren't as OP as the latter were in DS3, heh. All things considered, I suspect it will be a while before I start replacing my current gear.
- Music, atmosphere, and art direction hews closer to DS3 than anything, which shouldn't come as a shock to many. That said, I think it looks better and thankfully much less yellow-filtered-ish, so overall it's one of the better looking From games. I doubt it will beat Bloodborne in this area, but it might have a shot if it ups its game in later areas. I hope there is something like Irythill, at least.
Overall, my first impressions are quite positive, the game just needs to develop the core gameplay loop, mechanics, and content design beyond the basic building blocks presented here and we'll have a worthy entry to the catalogue of modern FS games, one that also has the bonus of being quite unique among this developer's output. I also think this could easily shape up to be one of the best open world games and action RPGs ever made. If I sound so optimistic, it's probably in part because I managed to avoid the huge hype for this game for a long time. I wasn't even sure I'd Day 1 it. I refused to buy into the hype in order to avoid disappointment, but the upside of that has been that I've been pleasantly surprised. Anyway, let's hope they keep up the quality.
Nice one Fromsoft.