Yeah, this was so ubisoft style formulaic it hurts. It would have been almost less offensive if they had done something like an entire area having NO catacombs or caves at all, and maybe another area having a load of extra of that crap if they felt the need to add this much padding somewhere.
As it stands, it was unbelievably predictable. Every time you explored a new map "zone", you knew you'd face: another dragon, another erdtree guardian boss, another catacomb, another mine, another cave, another hero tomb, a church.. in more or less the same quantities, sometimes one extra, sometimes one less, but no variation that would make you feel like you've entered somewhere any different other than the place having a different coat of paint.
Anyway, there was way too much content, and I don't want to hear "But you don't have to do it". How do I know if there isn't going to be an amazing, cool weapon hidden in copypasta302 before doing it? and it's the game series that relies almost entirely on item descriptions to convey its lore. So now, the amount of lore you'd gather naturally, doing cool content in previous games, you need to gather by spending a hundred hours in copypastaland. Seriously, fuck that shit.
It angers me because I really like that game when it shines. I like the classic dungeons a lot. I like most of the bosses. Leyndell's Sewers gave me flashbacks to Demon's Souls, the level design is very reminiscent of DeS in a good way. I wish I could replay this from scratch with a new character, but then I think about the amount of time I'll have to spend watching my character on a horseback, extra garbage content to get the items I'd want for a new build etc (even trying to remember where I got what item feels overwhelming, I might actually have to use a wiki to look up locations to start from scratch without pulling my hair) and I'm like.. no. I can't. I can't replay this.
Games like the previous souls I've replayed so many times on so many different character builds. I knew every corner by heart and could run them to completion in handful of hours without being a speedrunner or doing exploit tactics. They were games that respected your time and ran at a human scale, if you already knew most of the content and just wanted to experience the boss fights again and make new builds the games didn't act like time fucking vampires.
Meanwhile I ended up dropping ER after doing full completion of achievements and no matter how much a part of me wants to go back (I wouldn't be reading this thread if I hadn't the thought), I think back to the chore aspects and.. ah, it's really difficult.
Truly a love hate relationship. If From Soft's next game is also an open world game because of ER's excessive success, then it might turn into pure hatred.
