>>714398429They're the fun part exactly once, the first playthrough, specifically during that time window shortly after release when the wikis were still barren and you had no way to know that the entire early game would be crazy stingy with cool armor, weapons, ashes, spells, and especially upgrade materials to give your new toys a fair shake, for a good long while.
On every subsequent playthrough you'll be very aware that the early game is just going to be wasting a significant amount of your time pretty much no matter what build you're going for, in exchange for frankly mostly pretty forgettable dungeons. Stormveil is good, Raya Lucaria is passable, Caelid doesn't even have one (Redmane Castle is fucking embarrassing, don't even start), and that's pretty much all worth talking about save for the underground areas, and even there Siofra is a stinker.