That's a fourth of ER's open world already. Pretty significant.

As for DS3, I raise you Smouldering Lake and Farron Keep. Irythill Dungeon is also so much worse than the Prison of Hope in DeS.

No it's not, I'm talking about the west snow fields with the fog, it's about 1/16th or less if you laid the whole open world map out, probably less cause of the underground areas too which sre fantadtically designed and some of the best levels from FromSoft. I say 1/16th cause the Lake of Rot is bad form, it's not bad level design for what it is just pointless for it being there at all. 

I agree with Farron keep but I can't really judge it cause I'm against status effect levels in general, they will always be bad even if they have the most interesting design and you have plenty of consumables to offset it. 

Nioh is better than most of them.

I understand why you'd gave this opinion, I love both Souls and Nioh, Nioh 2 is definitely better than Souls 2 and 1, maybe even 3 but it doesn't beat BB or ER, Nioh 2 will be entering my top 50 next year somewhere above close to or above Souls 3 but you have to agree there is much in that game that doesn't hold up to From Softs standards, Loot everywhere that feels like trash and getting good gear and feeling stronger only comes in the post game and whatever the NG+ modes are called is the biggest factor but there is the bosses, often they are so weakly designed, From soft would throw half of them in the bin and returne the other half cause the difficulty is always swinging up and down. The level design, while pretty good and effective is nonsense when you think about it, if you vaguely follow the story the locations don't make sense and they use such antiquated methods to close off areas and keep things contained. FromSoft started with decent level design and reached God tier with Bloodborne and while Sekiro isn't great it's interesting and feels very looped back on itself, ever area is distinct and well made and makes perfect sense to the story, cohesive like somehlthing Team Ninja just can not accomplish even when they go open world and add amazing traversal mechanics it feels off and B tier. 

I'm sorry man, Nioh and Nioh 2 systems are unbelievably good, the extent of customisation with weapons, skills and all those nuanced mechanics from the stances to the ki pulse is so far beyond Souls they'll never reach it but they don't have to, they can make a simple back and forth parrying rythym system and make it feel as if it's better. It's clearly n9t ad detailed but it's tuned so well to enemy movesets and what not that it comes off as better combat in the moment without the excess.

For all the shit I keep giving Khazan, it's combat really is something special, such a perfect blend of Souls, Nioh and Sekiro and while I wanted Sekiro after the demo I'm glad it's like this, makes it feel unique. I changed my build weapons and skills up five times on my last session before I finally settled on a Spear build which is not only so much fun it has skill usage akin to Nioh but here there is actual beifet from using other skills rather than spamming the best.

The combo system is kinda like Wukong where you have a basic auto combo from 5 presses of square but more fleshed out and adaptable with the skill tree and less of just tapping square but more of weaving abilities and skill tree stuff into and around that basic chain to do more complex combos, it's mighty fun. I'd reckon if I had changed my build earlier and test what was working or not I'd have had an easier time, I was not playing to the fullest potential and I think I still may not be cause there are many more skills on that tree I can see benefit of weaving in when I earn the points for them. The thing to do in this game is not to pump hour main scaling stat but do a balanced build, get the gear weight down and make sure there is good stanima recovery, the fights are long anyway so a few missing points in straight atk damage doesn't matter so much. I'm having way more fun now and have returned to normal difficulty again now vause I felt OP on easy, which they patched and allow for now. The level design might be shite but it's filled with enemies to kill and that's enough cause the combat is just a snow ball of fun, ever getting more engaging and addicting. I still have 62% of the game left according to the XMB so it might end up an 8/10 yet. Top tier combat, up there with the best of them like BB and Nioh 2.

Also, you'd love Khazan. It's very much Nioh inspired more so than it's other influences like Souls and Sekiro. It's basically anime Nioh but without stances and just three weapons. It takes like 6 or 7 bosses in to reveal that it is thst style of game though. 

Okay after nearly 50 hours. I know I keep flip flopping on this and as infuriating as the game is, Khazan really is a great Soulbornekiro title and far, far better than Lies Of Pie aside fron the atmosphere and story. It's very close to a 9/10 and the bumps along the way at the start were from a lack of knowledge as some pretty integral mechanics are tied to the skill tree and that skill tree allows you to change up your style pretty significantly along with the three weapons which are encouraged to all be used for different scenarios and weapons scalingand RPG stats take a back seat as oppsed to gear on stats allowing for chaging weapons and making levels just allows you to collect better gear where the real building is and on that note the games Itemization is brilliant, it's not garbage collecting simulator like the Nioh series but had the same feel with loads of stats for variety but not too much tiny stat differences to make it feel trivial. 

I feel a lit better about the game now after learning there is a better version of the parry that works almost like a parry in any other game, it depletes half of the bosses posture instead of fully staggering them and it's a game changer, fights are still relatively long affairs but this elevates the feeling of sponge on some enemies, mini bosses and early in boss fights. The game is in many ways better than Nioh & Nioh 2 even, I think it might even be better overall because the bosses and elite enemies are so damn great, like absolutely perfect yo the genre, the best of the genre if you're not counting Sekiro, even better than Bloodborne.

The Stanima issueI mentioned can be side stepped with a passive boost you get straight away and just need to level along with attributes on gear and I plentiful consumable item you'll never run out of but that early game is still rough, there's no way aroubd that this only comes half way into the game. The Level design is not great but it's not bad, very much Nioh 2 in that manner even in the way they do difficulty in side missions and place important items in those side missions to incentive you to do them. The level become fun even if they aren't masterfully designed.

I'd say I'm in the last 20% of the game nearing 50 hours so far I spent a lot of time stuck on three certain bosses and doing side missions and unless they pull some nonsense between now and the final boss I'd say this may fall on a 9/10 for me but definatly an 8/10. I couldn't have been more wrong about this game, I just didn't understand it and bumoy is it massively addicting. They really should have backed some skill tree stuff into the game proper, esspecially the reflection parry ability.