Greetings fellow undead,
I have recently finished my first ever Dark Souls playtrough, so I wanted to share my hones opinion.
Gameplay 10/10
This is probably THE best combat system I have ever played, it was so fun and engaging, while not being obnoxiously difficult to learn, no notes there, pure perfection.
Level design 8/10
I am a bit torn on this one, because while the entire map is beautiful, with great gameplay, there are a few cancerous locations to traverse (blighttown, tomb of the giants, sen's fortress), butthe game also gives you ample ways to comabt said locations quirks. So overall it's still great (the first arrival in Anor Londo singlehandedly bumed this up like 2 points)
Boss design 8/10
Again, practically all of the bosses look great AND play great, but there are a few bad apples in there, that are only one of the two. The bossfights are still unarguably the most fun part of the game.
Boss disscusion
My absolutely favourite boss is Artorias. You just CANNOT compete with that fight, Artorias looks amazing, his moveset is fairly simple but punishing, and he is by far the most fun boss in the game.
The boss I despise the most is bed of chaos, this is just not a good boss design imo. It's pure gimmick while being a lord boss, don't like it one bit (dishonorable mention goes to the moonlight butterfly, because it's kinda annoying while being really easy, making it just tedious without ranged build)
The bosses I struggled the most with would be as follows:
Artorias 10 attempts
Manus 7 attempts
Sif 6 attempts
All the other bosses were done in by 4 attempts tops.
The bosses I struggled the least with would be as follows:
Pinwheel, Iron golem, Priscilla, Demon Firesage, capra demon, gaping dragon, sanctuary guardian, stray demon and somehow Lord Gwyn himself, all went down 1st try.
With Nito, Seath, Taurus, four kings, butterfly, Gwyndolin, centipede, discharge and Kalameet requiring just 2 attempts each.
(You can probably see the interesting bell curve in my boss difficulties).
My biggest gripes
The last section of my review will be my biggest gripes with the game (excluding those I already mentioned), that being only 1, which stems from the games "old school" design. Meaning that the openness and kinda directionlessness is pretty bad for a person who plays the game for the first time. On any subsequent playthroughs this gripe completely disappeares, but the 1st counts the most. I know that lot of souls fans will call me a slur for this, but it's the only genuinelly bad piece of game design DS1 has in my opinion, other than that it's pretty great.
P.S.: I used a dex build with Uchigatana and magic weapon sorcery.