I finally was able to beat Demon's Souls marking one of the last things on my bucket list for Fromsoft games. (I still need to play the Bloodborne DLC...)   
  
For the purposes of this post I will mostly be talking about Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, and Elden Ring. I have played and beat Bloodborne and Sekiro, but I feel the former 5 have most iterated upon eachother.

**Demon's Souls**: If Dark Souls 2 is the Black Sheep. Demon's Souls is the red headed stepchild that's been shoved into the closet. Mostly because a lot of people just don't talk about it at all despite it being the pioneer of the subgenre of Souls-likes. Look I get that Dark Souls 1 is popular but a lot of people need to give credit to this game. (Especially because it does some things better than Dark Souls 1 but, I'll get to that.) 

Everything in this game feels more purposefully designed than in any other game after and I feel like this game is a lot better than a lot of people give it credit for, be it level designs, boss and enemy designs, and Roleplay value... especially role play value.   
  
**Dark Souls**: This game has a lot more blemishes than a lot of people give it credit for, but I will give credit where its due. The interconnected map was great and it made the Kingdom of Lordan feel a lot more alive than other games in the series, and the level and enemy placements are great. (For the most part, everyone is pretty aware of the last half.)

No, the biggest blemishes are the bosses... sorry guys after playing Demon's Souls I look upon Dark Souls bosses with much more distain. I'll go down the list.

Gargoyles... Maneaters again... except its somewhat shittier in some ways. 

Pinwheel... Fool's Idol again... except its a way shittier punching bag. (Though he can be a threat at lower levels, but then again so are the catacombs.)

Capra is infamously really annoying, despite the cool clastraphobic vibe its got, but there is a reason why some use poison cheese or master key to skip.

Gaping Dragon and Iron Golem have the same Gimmick of having to deal with an outside interference on the boss woo... that makes it kinda uncreative. Using the same trick twice. At least it makes people more aware of the level, but I kinda wish it was done a bit better.

Moonlight butterfly... cool idea, but if a character isn't using range than its just a shitty time for the melee user. 

Centipede Demon, the Lava Gimmick is not nearly fleshed out to be that intresting, even with the discovery of the extra space or the lava ring.

Bed of Chaos, Dragon God but somehow even shittier if you could even imagine that.

The Asylum Demon is copied 3 times for no good reason. 

Seath's Immortilty Gimmick is wasted.

Nito's Gimmick is cool but his friendly fire somewhat defeats the purpose considering his limited moveset is supposed to be complemented by them.

You get the broader point. Dark Souls 1 base game bosses and boss mechanics were much more lack luster, uninspired, or terribly designed in comparison to its predecessor and its successors. With some very notable exceptions. Like Quelagg, O&S, Priscilla, Four kings ect.

Thankfully the DLC made up for that, as with all Fromsoft DLC tbh.  
  
**Dark Souls 2**: It's a lot better than people give it credit for. Yeah, I know thats not exactly a hot take in of itself, but I think some of its overall gameplay structure has similarities to Demon's Souls at least in its early game. You having different paths to go down, and at any point you ever feel stumped on a path you can switch to another one. The bosses themselves give off that Demon Souls feel too while also syntheizing what made Dark Souls good.    
  
In fact I think lot of the bosses are way more intresting in mechanical design than Dark Souls 1 especially the gimmick battles. Hell even the direct encounters have their own little secrets in them that can make the fight easier sometimes

This isn't to say Dark Souls 2 is perfect, on the contrary there are some bosses and levels that aren't nearly as fleshed out, but I feel like its on a similar level of quality to Dark Souls 1. If not slightly less, but only a pinch slightly.  
  
**Dark Souls 3**: I don't know if Dark Souls 3 is good at being an RPG in the same ways as the other Souls games and if I'm being honest that is entirely due to the linearity of the game. It's not bad as a design choice, not even a little. But I feel like it misses a good portion of what I like about Souls sometimes. A lack of choice really on where to go and what to do really hurts sometimes.

Granted the previous games had linear elements, but it didn't completely overide the experience in its totality. If I want something for a build or roleplay as a specific character with armor types and weapons I have to get to a point in the game in which I can do that. Which can be a while. 

It's probably the most balanced for its action elements but this linearity hurts the RPG side of things that makes it hard to reconcile, but for the contrainsts it is in I can't say much to terrible about Dark Souls 3.  
  
**Elden Ring**: This one might be a cold take, I'm not sure about it but I do have one suggestion for Fromsoftware in their next attempt at an open world title. Make some Dungeon and Cave encounters more Gimmicky. They don't have to touch any of the major encounters that involve more mechanical skill to defeat, but a lot of the dungeons can be repetitive because its just a mini boss in a flat room with not a lot of enviroment to take advantage of. Hell lean into the more elaborate design of dungeons and have some of the level design be a part of the boss battle. I know that would probably take a lot of work, but I think it would go a long way to make players not feel as fatiuged by the world and have them not skip as much to get to the "good stuff" on repeat playthroughs. Hell make them multifaceted like some of Demon's Souls bosses where you can exploit different weaknesses in the boss depending on what equipment you are using. That would be kinda fun. 

It can be a bit samey with just... boss in a flat room sometimes.

My Hot Takes of Each Souls Game After Finally Finishing every Souls game