I am finally done with chapter 3, and I feel all my hype and energy has been drained.
The prison escape part was frustrating, but doable. It's everything that comes after that really made me tired. I appreciate each chapter having different biome, but if you are gonna make each area big, the least you can do is make the navigation not an absolute hell.
The snow-covered mountain was beautiful to explore at first, but there was no clear landmark or indication of where I was going. This isn't necessarily a bad thing per se, but some of the branching paths just kept going, making me think this was the main path, only to find out it's a dead end. Other times I thought I was going somewhere, only to find I was going in circles.
Not all games need maps, especially in souls games. But with Fromsoft, they at least made all paths fairly linear with some connections here and there. Also, there was a clear environmental ques and landmarks to tell you where you were at and was heading. BM: W truly made me feel lost.
I also realized just how many invisible walls this game has. It keeps tricking me into think that I can go there, and I end up jumping against an invisible wall. I think this really goes against having big open areas; why give players false sense of freedom of exploration? Why have big open areas if you are gonna force them to follow very specific paths? Don't even get me started on the temple area near the end; It this deceptively small despite the large amount of grounds you have to cover.
Every boss in this level was pain; A dragon that loves to stay in air with a fucked-up hitbox? A miniboss that constantly freezes you? The final boss of this chapter finally broke me and I used cheats; I simply didn't care anymore.
I do have to say I enjoyed the cinematics after each chapter; all of them are in different styles and are really well-made. But with how drained I feel, I am not sure if I want to keep going with chapter 4 and beyond