My impression might be skewed because I’ve only played from the first through Syndicate so far. Based on those, yes, there’s a lot of pointlessness even there. After finishing all quests in Rogue, I had to spend as many hours to open all the chests and collect everything for achieving 100% completion. Still, I got to explore new places and see more of the game world. I also could just abandon that and still see the game as finished, but you can’t do these things if you’re stuck trying to beat a boss in a souslike, or at least how I understand those games.
You would have to look up strategy for boss fights but fromsoft usually leaves a cheese build in the game if you want to play more for story. It’s the attention to detail and solid design fundamentals that make set them apart though. Nintendo does similar quality work on Mario and Zelda where you can tell the team cares about the game.
My impression might be skewed because I’ve only played from the first through Syndicate so far. Based on those, yes, there’s a lot of pointlessness even there. After finishing all quests in Rogue, I had to spend as many hours to open all the chests and collect everything for achieving 100% completion. Still, I got to explore new places and see more of the game world. I also could just abandon that and still see the game as finished, but you can’t do these things if you’re stuck trying to beat a boss in a souslike, or at least how I understand those games.
You would have to look up strategy for boss fights but fromsoft usually leaves a cheese build in the game if you want to play more for story. It’s the attention to detail and solid design fundamentals that make set them apart though. Nintendo does similar quality work on Mario and Zelda where you can tell the team cares about the game.