https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryNzLWVbvkg
Level your browser’s STR/DEX by maining Opera at https://operagx.gg/Manley Here is another Dark Souls Video essay by a white guy with a checkmark. Dark Souls...
This is my opinion about every game that came after Dark Souls 1, although I think the drawbacks are a lot more visible in 2&3 in Elden Ring - as you pointed out about the open world. Finding the shortcuts in the first one (like Darkroot Garden connecting the Parish to the Burg) is a feeling that’s never been replicated for me in the later games.
I loved the way that you had to really think about and understand the world to get around. If I grinded humanity in the Depths and then needed to go to Anor Londo or something, I would stand there and imagine the path I would need to take, and the layout of the world would sort of unfold in my mind's eye in the path that'd I'd have to run to get there, and that was always so satisfying and amazingly grounding and immersive for me. not only the lack of fast travel, but the lack of a map.
It just never happened like that again after that game.