Just finished the game here. Overall, I enjoyed is substantially more than the second game, but I found it inferior in every way to the first. A new location not reminiscent of a previously visited area would have been nice, for one. I felt like I'd been everywhere before in past titles which, whilst not necessarily a bad thing (I both love and hate the Irityhll Dungeon in equal measure at this point) ruined the feeling of discovery for me somewhat. Throwbacks are great, but not when they're 90% of the game.
The hardest boss for me was actually Champion Gundyr, believe it or not. He was just so damn fast and, considering how sluggish everything else was, it was a bit of a shock to find an opponent who would have been more at home in Bloodborne. I panic-rolled an awful lot straight into his attacks initially, and his rapid-fire combos made it difficult to get a hit in during the second half. Pretty surprising. Every other boss was pretty easy, though. I had to be more careful getting to them than I did actually facing them. The Cathedral Knights and random freaky black mutated abombination things were more of a threat; those killed me more than any of the bosses did. The less said about the jailers the better. A bit disappointing, but they were all pretty atmospheric and interesting fights. Just...not very difficult. Nothing asides Gundyr 2.0 killed me more than twice. But since I don't play these games because I expect to be challenged it doesn't really matter I guess?
My crowning moment of awesome?
Rolling off the bridge the first time I fought the Dragonslayer Armour. A certain dragon on Archdragon Peak...that was fun. It was like slow-motion killing the High Dragon in Dragon Age: Origins all over again. I loved it. Also, pretty much all of the soundtrack was AMAZING. Some of the best boss themes of the series came out of this.
This in particular really set me on edge for the whole battle...