I’m a fan of both franchises and this seems like a good blend to me, not perfect but not bad.Seems like you’re ultimately annoyed that you can’t faceroll the game with simply bigger numbers in certain stats. And you also seemingly have a hate boner for Dark Souls.
You really drive that point home with “Few things felt better than pummeling an AC with shots that they couldn’t handle and keeping them in stun lock.”
I mean, if that’s how you have fun then ok; but I don’t think the majority of players find fun shooting fish in a barrel.
You’re also gonna have a pretty unsuccessful time chasing the gameplay of your childhood too. The entire gaming landscape has changed so simply plucking out the formulas of old and dialing up the graphics isn’t really enough. Look at Old School Runescape and see how the players approach the game compared to 2006. Look at Halo 3, one of the best, most influential FPS games to date, imo. If it were released today, it would be eaten alive, calling it “boring” or “simple” etc. ; because people today are playing seizure inducing shit like Valorant or Apex. I firmly think if you got the AC you think you wanted, it wouldn’t reach those expectations at all.