After nearly one-thousand hours in Dark Souls III, Cinders offered a uniquely fun and refreshing experience with some intriguing high-points, several laughs, as well as a few missteps in design. There is plenty of customization, however, so not every playthrough will be the same, allowing for much more replay value than the standard Souls experience.

From the very start, there are over 25 new classes to choose from, as well as different game modes. Aside from the standard mode, there are things like Wanderer’s Mode which removes weapon upgrades in favor of gaining damage bonuses for every boss defeated, or Gauntlet Mode which is a boss-rush type challenge, and even Explorer’s Mode which functions as the “easy” difficulty for the game. The rest of the mod follows suit with this customization style - deciding which rings to upgrade, multiple bonfire progression paths, applying debuffs to create minor challenges or change gameplay, and even the ability to change the appearance of your armor completely.

Cinders also changes many of the areas, altering progression paths, bonfires, and enemy placement. This was the most intriguing and refreshing aspect of the mod as someone who has memorized just about every item and enemy location in the base game. Sometimes it does feel a little like Scholar of the First Sin with hordes of enemies waiting around a corner, but most of the time Cinders does this in a way that feels challenging rather than frustrating. Increased usage of areas’ signature enemies also makes sections of the game feel more unique, such as placing more of the Profaned Capital’s hand-monstrosities throughout that area, or adding Ruin Sentinels to the Ringed City. Another wonderful decision reminiscent of Dark Souls II is the addition of many unique NPC invasions, especially since the mod is mainly played offline without the other players being able to invade. These small encounters add character to the levels, as well as fun mini-boss challenges to overcome and contribute to making the player feel the threat of danger, even in familiar environments.

More enemies does naturally mean more challenge, however Cinders also creates several new mechanics to off-set this. One fantastic addition is Perfect Block - if a player hits block at the correct time, the incoming attack drains zero stamina. Perfect Block seemed to activate quite often, and it made using a shield much more rewarding than the standard more passive gameplay of just holding it up to tank hits. The biggest change to gameplay from the mod, however, is the decision for FP to regenerate. While at first this is a fun mechanic, it quickly becomes incredibly powerful. As a faith build, this meant not only infinite weapon buffs and lightning arrows/sunlight spears, but also unlimited healing, which trivialized sections of the game. Cinders tries to stop this by increasing the cost of spells, but the regeneration is so quick that this change is meaningless.

Fortunately, bosses are balanced around this a bit by upping their damage and health, as well as slightly altering mechanics such as speed, aggressiveness, or even new attacks. This shines most in regards to the mid-game bosses. Abyss Watchers excitingly became one of the most difficult and challenging bosses in the game due to the higher health pool, as well as a delay on a certain helpful mechanic arriving, while Deacons of the Deep became panic inducing as two Cathedral Knights were added to the fray. Not all of the bosses are this well-balanced, however, as there are several new additions that are just re-skins of the Dragonslayer Armour, or only serve to have incredibly high defenses and health which makes fighting them a slog. The opposite can be true as well, unfortunately, as some of the later DLC bosses have not been tweaked enough, removing the challenge from their fights.

Cinders also reverts poise back to the original Dark Souls mechanics, meaning that it functions all the time rather than as a hyper-armor on certain weapon swings. This is something that many fans disliked about Dark Souls III and is interesting in theory, however it just does not work very well in a game that is designed around limited poise. Many bosses, including some of the traditionally more challenging ones such as Gael, just cannot match up against a heavy weapon user that cannot be moved, again making the end-game fairly lack-luster compared to the rest of the mod.

Despite some of these issues, Cinders is still an exciting change-up of the Dark Souls III formula, and offers some great moments even outside of the new mechanics. There are call-backs to every other game in the series, and it is incredibly fun just to find and discover items from other games like Bloodborne or Demon’s Souls or even the Elden Ring community’s inside jokes. The mod truly at times feels like a love-letter to the FromSoft community, which makes it incredibly fun and a joy to play even with some low-points in design and execution.