This is the best Dark Souls game. It's got this overall gritty and sort of weird design approach on basically every level, not just art direction but gameplay as well. One of the biggest factors that makes this game click so well is the map, and how every location is situated compared to other locations in the game. Despite the map being relatively sprawling and intricate it is actually easy to memorize where everything is and to visualize what potential paths make the most sense for navigation. Being unable to warp until later in the game helps too.

Some little things are annoying, like parkour which is not one of the strong suits of the franchise. Some of the bosses have questionable hit boxes on attacks, although that's not as much of an issue as in DS2, where the bosses are just largely broken. However, most of the game works out pretty well, it feels slightly janky in the best sort of way, where initially you have to get a feel for the movement and animations, but once you do things start to feel incredibly natural. The later entries in the Souls franchise really missed this element, for better or for worse. The character movement in DS2 is much smoother and then DS3 took it to an even more streamlined level, but there's a certain kind of charm to the jank of the first Dark Souls. It's also a poorly balanced game, but this yet again makes it more endearing and memorable. The lower health pools of all of the bosses avoids the overly long boss fights present in DS2 and to a smaller degree in some of DS3.

This is the best Dark Souls game. It's got this overall gritty and sort of weird design approach on basically every level, not just art direction but gameplay as well. One of the biggest factors that makes this game click so well is the map, and how every location is situated compared to other locations in the game. Despite the map being relatively sprawling and intricate it is actually easy to memorize where everything is and to visualize what potential paths make the most sense for navigation. Being unable to warp until later in the game helps too. Some little things are annoying, like parkour which is not one of the strong suits of the franchise. Some of the bosses have questionable hit boxes on attacks, although that's not as much of an issue as in DS2, where the bosses are just largely broken. However, most of the game works out pretty well, it feels slightly janky in the best sort of way, where initially you have to get a feel for the movement and animations, but once you do things start to feel incredibly natural. The later entries in the Souls franchise really missed this element, for better or for worse. The character movement in DS2 is much smoother and then DS3 took it to an even more streamlined level, but there's a certain kind of charm to the jank of the first Dark Souls. It's also a poorly balanced game, but this yet again makes it more endearing and memorable. The lower health pools of all of the bosses avoids the overly long boss fights present in DS2 and to a smaller degree in some of DS3.