I've played every FromSoftware "soulslike" and I think this one is my favourite. There are many quality of life changes from past games especially with "sites of grace" or spawn/teleport points in the game, as well as new checkpoints "stakes of marika". Some of these changes make the game more forgiving and therefore easier than past games, but I believe the difficulty is in a good place and the changes make the game less frustrating and more accessible to newcomers of the series. I love how the game is much more open and that we finally receive an in-game map and a mount to traverse this huge game, it makes exploring much more fun and less of a walking simulator.

I think the combat feels better than previous souls games but still not as fluid and satisfying as Sekiro and there are still many janky fights, especially any duo boss fight of which there is many, luckily most of them are optional. The online/multiplayer mechanics are as, in my opinion of course, as garbage as every souls game luckily they are completely optional. The pvp community is pretty big though if that interests you, however I would find a group on discord to pvp with if I were you as invading random players can be fun but you'll likely be outnumbered or will fight outrageously broken builds.

The build diversity in this game is huge and adds a ton of replay value and I would say you can make any build viable, the game is also quite forgiving with it's respec mechanic and allows you to completely switch play styles if you are unhappy with your build. With the size of this game and with how many secrets there are I am constantly finding new things every time I start a new run, and get new ideas for a fun build I want to try.

Overall I would say this is the best game in the souls genre, especially if you are a newcomer to the series, and is my pick for "Game of the Year 2022"!