Yeah i can agree with that. 3 is certainly my least favorite. Its mostly grown on me with the context of the games on either side of it, and growing appreciation for how good + deliberate From is at iteration through sequels/spinoffs to keep tinkering with their pet ideas (its been present since back in Kings Field times, and even their gazillion Armored Core games arent as superficially different as i used to think)
i also think of the otherwise thin recycled-feeling story as kinda… metatextual (audience collectively groans & boos). You’re the composite remains of a thousand abandoned Dark Souls characters on a quest to defeat the top 5 players of all time (with a secret 6th one in the DLC). the First Flame is sputtering out, the cycles are spiraling tighter and tighter and even overlapping on themselves (eg Untended Graves). and idk how else to interpret the “good” ending where you put out the First Flame yet are told “tiny flames will one day flicker across the darkness” as anything but “we’re retiring the Age of Fire mythos (but put Elden Ring and Armored Core VI on your preorder list fam theyre gonna be great lol)”
Its also tied into its best/most fresh feeling visual motif, the sense that the world is crushing together into a singularity. in the ashen graveyard where you begin the stones are built vertically atop eachother to the point of absurdity, same with the buildings in the undead settlement. When you go to the kiln at the end it’s at the absolute end of time and the world has been worn away into nothing but the smashed together ruins of every firelink shrine. Then the last DLC goes even further lol it’s a real preoccupation they had. i think if nothing else DS3 gets mileage out of pushing the Dark Souls subseries to its logical extremes