as ragebaity as it may be, some of this strikes true, I feel like. it’s cool that item descriptions explain the lore, for example, but I personally have not engaged with them too much when I had the choice. and on paper, the combat is not all too flashy. It’s methodical, calculated, but overall, it’s “just” attacking and dodging.
opinions?
It’s entirely ragebait — so many important factors in the lore come from the nature of the enemies, the place that they’re in… the items themselves provide context and is a part of the whole. There are mysteries in the Souls series that simply don’t have answers — and they never will. If that is a problem for you, I would recommend maybe reading better books.
Lord of the Rings, for example, has the Entwives — you will never know what happened to them, why they’re gone (though the assumption is Sauron), you are only left with enough facts to understand the Ents cannot reproduce. Following the theme of magic ‘dying’ in the world. Tom Bombadil is another good example here, you won’t ever actually ‘know’ what Bombadil is.
As far as the gameplay is concerned, yes the gameplay loop can be broken down to simply ‘dodge at the right time, swing at the right time’. That is completely ignoring pyromancy magic and faith, shields (blocking and parrying, so so so many players fail to recognize how easy it is to find and use a shield with 100% DR while maintaining light roll), things like bows and crossbows (I don’t touch them but they’re there), and all the useable items.
I can go on, but I think I’ve written enough.