I never played any Souls games before Elden Ring, and while it was a bit frustrating at first, I came to enjoy the exploration quite a lot.
It’s not as hard as people make it up to be, as you can mostly just overlevel a bit if you hit a wall. Some of the boss fights suck, though. They feel unfair at times and I felt a bit lucky to beat some of them when they just randomly don’t do the hard-to-avoid combos.
The exploration is what makes the game for me. The universe and atmosphere is spot on. Trying out different weapons and builds is a lot of fun once you get to around lvl 50.
I apparently was too stupid to find the thing that teaches you how to craft in thebvery beginning, as well as the first boss, so I ended up wandering around grinding until I killed the second boss first. Idk man those games just aren’t for me