They were phoning it in with the story/lore and characters, the Zanzibart factor is insane, the amount of copy pasting is atrocious, the catacombs and mines and 70% of the open world are all worthless filler, the NPC quests are the worst they have ever been.
The bosses all have super fast 50 hit combos with AOE attacks and delayed bullshit sprinkled in there, they can turn on a dime in a split second and all behave like your character isn't tied to rigid Souls mechanics.
If you're a completionist the shitty platforming is what's going to cause 80% of your deaths. No idea why they shoehorn that garbage in the game. No one finds it fun.
The camera is still fucking worthless against giant enemies, which, surprise surprise, make up a lot of the more difficult ones.

It's just nowhere near as good as Dark Souls or Bloodborne. I even liked Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 more than this. Aesthetics are peak though, not gonna lie.