TL;DR These games aren't bad, I just personally don't really like them. While there are good aspects and it being the reason i could finish at least 4 of them, I think they could be much better. But apparently I didn't even play these games according to the fans, so I guess I don't know anything.

I probably just signed my own death warrant with this, but I really tried to like them, i truly did. And I do want to state that this is just my opinion, if you love them then that's fine, this isn't a personal attack on anyone. I started playing the soulsborne games last year. I started off with dark souls 1, then moved on to dark souls 2, then bloodborne and lastly dark souls 3, including all dlc content across all of them. I don't think I will be playing demons souls or sekiro.

Technically I don't hate these games, but I do find them very underwhelming. In the past I've given up on games really early on that would end up being some of my favourites. The most noticeable was Red Dead Redemption 2. I played it not long after launch and after a day of playing i thought it was a very clunky overrated disaster. My friend had recently beat it and told me how much he loved it, so I tried giving it another try and i ultimately fell in love with it, really fell in love with the story and characters. It's currently apart of my top 10 favourite games of all time.

Nowadays I try to be alot more patient with games I play, and so with the soulsborne games I really wanted to try give them a fair chance and play a few to see if it would click with me, and I was hoping it would become some of my favourites, but it just wasn't happening. Before playing them all I heard was how great they were. Things like how they were some of the best games to come out in the past decade, some said they were the best games ever made, and a few even claimed it had ruined gaming for them to the point where they couldn't play anything else anymore, and I just think that's crazy.

I do want to say that the difficulty isn't the reason for not liking them, while I did get stuck early on especially it was something that I got use to eventually. My issue is more so on how from software execute their games, after playing 4 of of them now i can see that it's just not the sort of game that meets my preferences, and I was hoping I would be wrong and giving up too early would be a mistake, but I guess I was just waiting for something that wouldn't happen.

I will say that I think objectively the games do have good qualities, the exploration was probably my favourite aspect in how you always have control of your character and can explore, and the game not forcefully telling you what to do was a nice change of pace compared to most stuff that comes out in this day and age. Combat was also pretty fun especially in bloodborrne. These things are mainly why I wanted to play a few of them at least, and I would say that I think bloodborne was the best out of the 4. But based on my experience there was too many things that I don't like or simply can't stand to be able to write it off as something I actually enjoyed.

I'm still curious to see how everyone else feels about them, whether you like them or you don't or if you are sort of neutral even. I know this is a pretty controversial hot take, and I will say there are games I've played that are far worse than my experience with this, but personally I can't quite jump on the worship for this one.

Edit: Considering a few people have asked now I'll go into detail on why I don't necessary like these games, all of this is just my opinion but at this point I don't think anyone's going to care or take me seriously anyway.

Lore

I really don't care to read item descriptions or talk to random npcs just to understand a games plot, I found it very boring and hard to keep invested in, the game never wanted me to care for what was going on and I get that's the point but I still didn't enjoy it. I much prefer to have a linear story one where you watch lots of cutscenes and hang out or proceed forward with interesting and cool characters, I find it way more engaging and memorable. I just never got this with the lore even when I was reading it or watching videos. I really enjoyed bioshock because I enjoyed how it handled its lore more. Listening to audio logs found within the game world and actually hearing how the people react and how they feel made it feel alot more engaging, and where you pick up the audio logs creates a scenario of what it would look like. I just found that more engaging, but admittedly I didn't read all of the soulsborne lore for every game, i tried to but I would eventually just get bored and tried to focus on the gameplay instead.

Questlines

While on the topic of lore I also didn't care for the quest lines in the game, not just with the people you actually talk to but with how it's executed in the gameplay. I don't mind that the game doesn't hold your hand but it also tells you absolutely nothing, and I had to constantly look stuff up if I even wanted to progress a quest line because apparently if you progress too much or kill a boss the quest just fucks up and then you either have to make a new character or wait until new game plus to try again. I just have to say how is that good game design? I'd be fine with it not telling me how they work and still left it up to me to explore and find them for myself, but the fact it can be screwed up very easily doesn't make that much sense, it feels like this could of been executed way better and in each game it just wasn't happening.

Running back to bosses

Run backs to bosses are a questionable design choice, I think they are implemented well in the game world when you are naturally exploring, but when it comes to a boss that just doesn't apply. Why is it that every time I would die to a boss I would have to spend either a few seconds or even a few minutes running back to a boss? Why not just have a bonfire/lamp outside of the fogwall. I fail to see the logic in what this would actually destroy if it was like that. Now i know that dying and having to run back to the boss at all is entirely my fault, but it could of just been handled better and it just isn't. I did notice in bloodborne and Dark souls 3 that some were closer, but this isn't deserving of praise it should of been like that from the start and should just be the standard. Whenever I would die it was never "damn I fucked up ill try something different next time" it was always "oh great now I gotta do that stupid run back again, why is this actually a thing". I understand too that you can find shorter routes to get to the boss but it still doesn't fix the fucking issue. In most games you can either respawn for the boss or choose to try again if you would like, but these games just make you run back every single time it's just a very strange design choice.

Forced new game plus

Being thrown into new game plus only applies to dark souls 1 and bloodborne but it's still an issue. I mentioned how I don't mind the game not holding your hand and that's true, but in situations like this what would of been so hard to just have a message that says "you will go into new game plus if you progress, make sure to complete anything you still have left", but no instead you fight the final boss or choose an ending without even fighting a final boss in bloodbornes case and then the game just throws you into new game plus no questions asked, like If you had stuff you still needed to do you are just shit out of luck I guess. Dark souls 2 and 3 gave you the option to restart your journey, dark souls 2 came out before bloodborne did so why is this even an issue? Why not have the choice in dark souls 1 and bloodborne aswell? How did they fuck this up.

Invaders

Ok so this is abit of a weird one. It's true you can just play in offline and never get Invaded, but by playing online you can see all the notes left by other players and by rating it fine or in dark souls 1 and 2s case rating it you would be able to give someone else currently playing the game some extra health, this is a really cool mechanic but it almost doesn't matter because you can just get Invaded by someone that has over 1000 hours that will stomp your shit proving how much they low life the game and how much they are better than you. So the only real choice if you suck is just to play offline, but then if you are playing offline well then you are screwing over the players you can give health and screwing over the players who need to invade to get those covenant items or because they want to pvp. In doing this it just feels like from software are making a toxic community and it should of been handled better somehow.

farming blood vials and quicksilver bullets

Having to farm blood vials and quicksilver bullets in bloodborne is so fucking tedious and boring. Its less of an issue later on when you get more blood echoes and you can just mass buy them, but in the early game you have to spend time grinding and barely have enough to buy and it really breaks the flow of gameplay. Maybe it makes sense for the hunter technically, I guess, but as far as actually playing the game goes its super tedious and the estus flask was executed way better. I just don't know how they went backwards in this, something as simple as healing. It is more so an issue early on and I guess its worth saying that I do suck so I would of had to do that often in the early game, but it should still not actually be a thing and yet it is.

the fanbase

The fanbase is pretty stupid tbh. Not all of it there have been some genuinely nice people I have met and that I've enjoyed talking to... but jesus christ the rest of it is just awful. For some reason people are certain that if others don't like the soulsborne games then they just didn't actually play them, or they need to git gud because they suck and fail to see that's it's a 10/10 flawless masterpiece. Well then shit what did I just spend the past 100 hours doing? Can't of been actually playing 4 highly praised video games. It's because of shit like this that make the fanbase hard to actually engage with, apparently not liking a game just means they haven't played it, what kind of faulty logic is that. Maybe there is a time where someone doesn't actually play them or complete them and hates them and that does happen alot, but I actually spent a really long time trying to like these games and it turns out unless you think it's a 10/10 flawless masterpiece, then you didn't play them, that's a sad way to look at it if you ask me.

There's more stuff I could talk about but I think I've made my point. While I don't think these games are bad I just think they have so many issues that makes it hard for me to actually enjoy them. Some of the stuff is so basic that it really makes me struggle to understand why people consider them 10/10 games, or at the very least something close to that. Maybe I'm just an idiot, they probably are amazing and I completely missed the point but at least I tried.