The first half has absolutely perfect world design, literally the smartest world design I’ve ever seen in a game, ever. A little door will open into a shortcut that takes you halfway around the world all the way back to a checkpoint you forgot about, and there’s literally like a dozen of them. The world is technically tiny but there’s so much verticality and shortcuts that it feels like a huge maze. Enemy placement is amazing and bosses in the first half are pretty good.

About halfway through the game, at its peak in anor londo, you unlock the Lordvessel which lets you teleport to bonfires. Because of this you never need to use shortcuts again, and from then on the level design reflects that and becomes pretty linear, with some areas that feel unfinished such as lost izalith. So the second half of the game is just fine with some ok bosses.

Now, the dlc at the end of the game picks up again. Best bosses in the game, good level design with good shortcuts again, interesting lore and really visually nice areas.