This one has the best story, with some of the most memorable NPCs and bosses. This one also has the best world/level design. The way everything is interconnected was executed very well. Not counting Elden ring that was just a completely different scale, this one did the best job having multiple paths you could take, that weren't just isolated areas.

This was also the first one where they introduced often forgotten element of the difficulty of these games. That is, if this area is too hard, go somewhere else and then come back later when you are more powerful. Sometimes people forget that and keep throwing themselves at a challenge over and over, unnecessarily. That repetitive grinding is necessary in some cases to improve and overcome some challenges in the souls series, but they have always done a good job over giving players a variety of different options/methods to beat the game as a whole.

I also only played the remastered version, so I understand some of the graphics and camera issues. Even on the remastered version, there are times were the game feels a bit slow and clunky.

I would rank this one above DS2 and Demon Souls solely for how iconic it is, and that is not to say that wasn't earned. They scratched the surface of a great formula that would be perfected in the future games.