Have you ever been in the unfortunate position of reading someone say that Dark Souls III relies too heavily in "fanservice crammed with references from the first game" (or something similar)? If you have, try contacting whoever said it, and send them the link to this page!
You might be saving a life by doing this. Remember, only you can teach others on the internet how sequels work.
You might be saving a life by doing this. Remember, only you can teach others on the internet how sequels work.
(This review is specifically for playing this game in multiplayer/co-op)
Dark souls 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, and playing through it solo is a very engaging experince. Same cannot be said about its online mode.
I dont know why this game gets a lot of traffic for online specifically. I played through this run with my good friend Hilda and, while i did have a fantastic time playing with her, its very obvious that this game is not really meant to be played with anyone. Bosses feel unsatisfying most of the time, as its attention is split between you and the other player, and it never feels like the game handles 2 competent players together well. The areas outside that however are all fun and games, and i wish there were levels specifically made for playing with a friend in mind cause it was a blast.
Till you get invaded. Everyone already knows this but what is wrong with dark souls players? Why're they so mean and needlessly aggressive? Hilda makes everything entertaining but even her classic and iconic Frogger build couldnt get us out of some of these encounters. I think we met 3 whole players who were nice to us throughout the run but the rest had a stick up their ass for no reason. One guy was pretending to be Hitler and another guy, aptly named "you suck", invaded maybe 3000 times and proceeded to kill us with a glicthed gael crossbow. Even normal encounters take forever because i do shit damage and everyone else has rigged themselves out to kill anything that moves in one hit. Not my idea of fun when im playing with someone.
This is my first time playing ds3 online so i guess im just kind of confused why everyone loves the multiplayer so much, cause dueling is maybe the worst experince in the world and the game doesnt bend enough for it to be a seemless co-op experience.
Ill never forget Frogger's sacrifice.... killing Midir all by herself for me...naked, high heels, boobs OUT, greatsword in hand..... what would dark souls do without such an idol.
Dark souls 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, and playing through it solo is a very engaging experince. Same cannot be said about its online mode.
I dont know why this game gets a lot of traffic for online specifically. I played through this run with my good friend Hilda and, while i did have a fantastic time playing with her, its very obvious that this game is not really meant to be played with anyone. Bosses feel unsatisfying most of the time, as its attention is split between you and the other player, and it never feels like the game handles 2 competent players together well. The areas outside that however are all fun and games, and i wish there were levels specifically made for playing with a friend in mind cause it was a blast.
Till you get invaded. Everyone already knows this but what is wrong with dark souls players? Why're they so mean and needlessly aggressive? Hilda makes everything entertaining but even her classic and iconic Frogger build couldnt get us out of some of these encounters. I think we met 3 whole players who were nice to us throughout the run but the rest had a stick up their ass for no reason. One guy was pretending to be Hitler and another guy, aptly named "you suck", invaded maybe 3000 times and proceeded to kill us with a glicthed gael crossbow. Even normal encounters take forever because i do shit damage and everyone else has rigged themselves out to kill anything that moves in one hit. Not my idea of fun when im playing with someone.
This is my first time playing ds3 online so i guess im just kind of confused why everyone loves the multiplayer so much, cause dueling is maybe the worst experince in the world and the game doesnt bend enough for it to be a seemless co-op experience.
Ill never forget Frogger's sacrifice.... killing Midir all by herself for me...naked, high heels, boobs OUT, greatsword in hand..... what would dark souls do without such an idol.
Simply the best the Dark Souls series has to offer.
The best bosses, Gael, best soundtrack, Gael, best areas, Gael, Midir, Gael, Good story, amazing themes, anything that does the theme "it's okay to let things go" is automatically 5/5 for me.
Though somewhat limited in playstyles due to magic being not so good.
(update):
The story is about what you'd expect from a souls game. Fallen kingdom, lots of lore and names about things you never see, kill four dudes to collect their souls and then bring them to the final boss area to fight the final boss. It does what it says on the tin but with a lot of references and characters from Dark Souls 1 (and some of 2).
It's very rote and I'd almost have a problem with that if it weren't for the meta-narrative and themes presented in the game.
With the degradation and corruption of old characters and locations from the other games, it embodies series fatigue. Its setting, its characters, its bosses, are all tired, exhausted, in pain. They beg for the end, but it always continues (This is literally the plot of the Ashes of Ariandel dlc so it's not exactly subtle). There's always someone to light the First Flame and extend the Age of Fire despite no one wanting it to continue.
The Ringed City dlc takes place where the lore starts, where the first undead are but it also shows the very last things to ever happen in the Dark Souls universe, the very end, and the absolute ruins of everything.
Gwyn couldn't let go of the golden age and we can see the consequences of his actions. And that's what the series, especially Dark Souls 3, is about. It's about letting go and moving on and doing other things in your life. It's about how everything no matter how good or bad, must come to an end and how scary that process is, but most importantly, how hopeful that can be. (You can see this with the painting girl using the literal Dark Soul to paint a new world at the very very end of the game.)
Dark Souls 3 is the last Dark Souls game we'll ever get, and that's okay.
The best bosses, Gael, best soundtrack, Gael, best areas, Gael, Midir, Gael, Good story, amazing themes, anything that does the theme "it's okay to let things go" is automatically 5/5 for me.
Though somewhat limited in playstyles due to magic being not so good.
(update):
The story is about what you'd expect from a souls game. Fallen kingdom, lots of lore and names about things you never see, kill four dudes to collect their souls and then bring them to the final boss area to fight the final boss. It does what it says on the tin but with a lot of references and characters from Dark Souls 1 (and some of 2).
It's very rote and I'd almost have a problem with that if it weren't for the meta-narrative and themes presented in the game.
With the degradation and corruption of old characters and locations from the other games, it embodies series fatigue. Its setting, its characters, its bosses, are all tired, exhausted, in pain. They beg for the end, but it always continues (This is literally the plot of the Ashes of Ariandel dlc so it's not exactly subtle). There's always someone to light the First Flame and extend the Age of Fire despite no one wanting it to continue.
The Ringed City dlc takes place where the lore starts, where the first undead are but it also shows the very last things to ever happen in the Dark Souls universe, the very end, and the absolute ruins of everything.
Gwyn couldn't let go of the golden age and we can see the consequences of his actions. And that's what the series, especially Dark Souls 3, is about. It's about letting go and moving on and doing other things in your life. It's about how everything no matter how good or bad, must come to an end and how scary that process is, but most importantly, how hopeful that can be. (You can see this with the painting girl using the literal Dark Soul to paint a new world at the very very end of the game.)
Dark Souls 3 is the last Dark Souls game we'll ever get, and that's okay.
Modern FromSoft never disappoints, to this day the combat is unmatched and is only comparable to their own games.
I love this game and I love this franchise.
I love this game and I love this franchise.
Now, If hypothetically Speaking, Dark souls 3, was a real humanoid that was female and had Voluptuous bouncing breasts, Hyopthetically of course. I would suck those tits, I would suck Dark Souls 3 Hyopthetically Gigantic jiggling Bongos.
In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a practice of creating detailed patterned mandelas out of colored sand. They spend days weaving these intricate patterns of profound beauty.
And then they destroy it. Sweep it up. Hours upon hours of labor gone. It's done to symbolise impermanence. How nothing lasts forever. And, without saying too much, I think dark souls 3's story manages to encapsulate that wonderfully.
The aesthetic is another thing.
Ash on top of ash. A bleak smouldering flame casts a boundless shadow on a vast nothing. Mounds of dust pile up on a bleak, dead world. The grey palette of this world accentuates this fact. And yet, there's beauty in it, beauty in the faded colours of tattered tapestries and stone monuments from a bygone era. The struggle of the worlds inhabitants, their hollowed bodies like broken down machines, their ideals and aspirations long gone, as their flesh twitches and moves by instinct alone. The mangled corpse of this world has been violated, moulded into an unrecognisable shape by forces that resist change. Something that was meant to burn with vigor and grace has now become unsightly cinders, begging to be snuffed out.
This is not even mentioning the combat. Being a zombie clad in rusted armour and tattered clothing has never felt this good. With each swing of my exile Greatsword, you feel the weight of the unwieldy hunk of steel. But the animations make you feel like it's something one can hold with grace. The swings cut through the air, and feel responsive and chunky. The bosses, giant figures that tower over you. Which makes it all the more gratifying when they get staggered when hit by a tiny undead carrying a comically large weapon. The combat, while not as tight as sekiro, still has a rhythm to it. The boss fights are the best out of any souls game, with the worst of them still being memorable experiences, but the best feeling like a dance. They swing, you roll. It takes two to tango, and Gael needs a dance partner. The responsive combat and fluid animations making it all the more satisfying to get in a fight.
The combat is tight. The story, a fitting for a conclusion to this long running saga. And the world is a sight to behold. I could not ask for a better conclusion to the series.
And then they destroy it. Sweep it up. Hours upon hours of labor gone. It's done to symbolise impermanence. How nothing lasts forever. And, without saying too much, I think dark souls 3's story manages to encapsulate that wonderfully.
The aesthetic is another thing.
Ash on top of ash. A bleak smouldering flame casts a boundless shadow on a vast nothing. Mounds of dust pile up on a bleak, dead world. The grey palette of this world accentuates this fact. And yet, there's beauty in it, beauty in the faded colours of tattered tapestries and stone monuments from a bygone era. The struggle of the worlds inhabitants, their hollowed bodies like broken down machines, their ideals and aspirations long gone, as their flesh twitches and moves by instinct alone. The mangled corpse of this world has been violated, moulded into an unrecognisable shape by forces that resist change. Something that was meant to burn with vigor and grace has now become unsightly cinders, begging to be snuffed out.
This is not even mentioning the combat. Being a zombie clad in rusted armour and tattered clothing has never felt this good. With each swing of my exile Greatsword, you feel the weight of the unwieldy hunk of steel. But the animations make you feel like it's something one can hold with grace. The swings cut through the air, and feel responsive and chunky. The bosses, giant figures that tower over you. Which makes it all the more gratifying when they get staggered when hit by a tiny undead carrying a comically large weapon. The combat, while not as tight as sekiro, still has a rhythm to it. The boss fights are the best out of any souls game, with the worst of them still being memorable experiences, but the best feeling like a dance. They swing, you roll. It takes two to tango, and Gael needs a dance partner. The responsive combat and fluid animations making it all the more satisfying to get in a fight.
The combat is tight. The story, a fitting for a conclusion to this long running saga. And the world is a sight to behold. I could not ask for a better conclusion to the series.
Not a fan. The story is mostly an uninteresting retread that fails to say much of anything the first game didn't already say, and the combat is far more high intensity without any of the supporting mechanical depth something like Bloodborne has to make it interesting. It's not a terrible game but like 2 it pales in comparison to just playing 1 again lol.
Dizem que o melhor Dark Souls é aquele que você joga primeiro.
Comigo não deu tão certo assim. Talvez esse fosse o melhor Dark Souls, se não estivesse desesperadamente tentando ser o primeiro.
Não é atoa que DS2 é mais importante para os jogos posteriores da FROM do que esse aqui jamais será.
Comigo não deu tão certo assim. Talvez esse fosse o melhor Dark Souls, se não estivesse desesperadamente tentando ser o primeiro.
Não é atoa que DS2 é mais importante para os jogos posteriores da FROM do que esse aqui jamais será.
Dark Souls Peak
Far and away the best of the trilogy, Dark Souls III seems like a complete F-U to the two games before it. A polished experience from start to finish, the third entry into the series feels like the best moments of Elden Ring at times with some of the annoying trepidation of the previous two entries.
The first thing that I have to salute DS3 about and it's almost a little sad that I am, is the fact that it ran at a glorious 60 FPS with a nice graphic sheen to it that reminded me of last year's GOTY: Elden Ring. The visual fidelity didn't just do the environments of this title justice, but made movement and boss fights much more manageable and approachable throughout the ~30 hour experience. From the moment I loaded in to completion of the game I was in awe at how fluid it was, and there were many times that I felt like I was in the world of Elden Ring.
Gameplay took a tremendous leap between the previous title and this one, dropping silly things like I-Frames that are tied to a stat and accelerated weapon degradation against bosses in favor of a smoother and more enjoyable experience. I went with my Fromsoft staple oonga boonga melee build, swapping great club and a giant axe until I found Dragon's Tooth (my Dark Souls 1 go to) later on. There were moments where I felt I was a little cheated, but it was never at a point where I thought it was overbearing or simply bad game design as it was in DS1 & DS2. Upgrading weapons felt vindicating as you could fully tune them to your playstyle, and were giving ample resources to do so. Gear didn't have to be upgraded as it was in DS2 either, making for a playthrough where you could worry moreso about the actual "game" of Dark Souls rather than material management.
Bosses were a tremendous leap between the titles too, clearly taking a page from the improvements Fromsoft made with Bloodborne the year prior. From the moment you fight Iudex Gundyr all the way until the final boss of the DLC, you are matched against bosses who will not just test your raw stats but also your ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome. That was my favorite part of playing all of Dark Souls III, the fact that bosses weren't gimmicks to be understood and passed by, but actually difficult opponents that could be beaten by learning their patterns and how to react appropriately. Again, very Bloodborne and a clear pattern they would replicate with Elden Ring many moons later. I don't want to give spoilers because the lore and sequencing is rightfully important to many players, but there were some bosses later on I would jump up after beating and say "I hated that, it was one of the best boss fights I've ever done." My favorite part of Bloodborne was how each match against each boss felt like a dance to the death because of how fluid and integral constant movement was to that game. Now, Dark Souls III is notably slower but you still feel like you're in an honest duel with these bosses, in which pure skill will reign supreme.
Like I touched on with comments on visual fidelity above, the game is absolutely gorgeous and filled with those "Fromsoft Moments" where you enter a new area atop a cliffside and pause just to gaze at the incredible vistas in front of you. Beauty is abound throughout the entire game, however I found myself most in awe when I played the ultimate "Ringed City" DLC. Such rich use of colour and scale is utilized to craft a believable environment of dilapidated buildings and past socieities.
While it wasn't perfect (it was too short!) Dark Souls 3 is a jaw dropping experience that engages the player from their first moments all the way into its conclusion. A massive improvement from Dark Souls 1 & 2, it improves on just about everything to make it clear how great of a job Fromsoft has done in gameplay innovation and creativity. I would absolutely recommend Dark Souls III.
Far and away the best of the trilogy, Dark Souls III seems like a complete F-U to the two games before it. A polished experience from start to finish, the third entry into the series feels like the best moments of Elden Ring at times with some of the annoying trepidation of the previous two entries.
The first thing that I have to salute DS3 about and it's almost a little sad that I am, is the fact that it ran at a glorious 60 FPS with a nice graphic sheen to it that reminded me of last year's GOTY: Elden Ring. The visual fidelity didn't just do the environments of this title justice, but made movement and boss fights much more manageable and approachable throughout the ~30 hour experience. From the moment I loaded in to completion of the game I was in awe at how fluid it was, and there were many times that I felt like I was in the world of Elden Ring.
Gameplay took a tremendous leap between the previous title and this one, dropping silly things like I-Frames that are tied to a stat and accelerated weapon degradation against bosses in favor of a smoother and more enjoyable experience. I went with my Fromsoft staple oonga boonga melee build, swapping great club and a giant axe until I found Dragon's Tooth (my Dark Souls 1 go to) later on. There were moments where I felt I was a little cheated, but it was never at a point where I thought it was overbearing or simply bad game design as it was in DS1 & DS2. Upgrading weapons felt vindicating as you could fully tune them to your playstyle, and were giving ample resources to do so. Gear didn't have to be upgraded as it was in DS2 either, making for a playthrough where you could worry moreso about the actual "game" of Dark Souls rather than material management.
Bosses were a tremendous leap between the titles too, clearly taking a page from the improvements Fromsoft made with Bloodborne the year prior. From the moment you fight Iudex Gundyr all the way until the final boss of the DLC, you are matched against bosses who will not just test your raw stats but also your ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome. That was my favorite part of playing all of Dark Souls III, the fact that bosses weren't gimmicks to be understood and passed by, but actually difficult opponents that could be beaten by learning their patterns and how to react appropriately. Again, very Bloodborne and a clear pattern they would replicate with Elden Ring many moons later. I don't want to give spoilers because the lore and sequencing is rightfully important to many players, but there were some bosses later on I would jump up after beating and say "I hated that, it was one of the best boss fights I've ever done." My favorite part of Bloodborne was how each match against each boss felt like a dance to the death because of how fluid and integral constant movement was to that game. Now, Dark Souls III is notably slower but you still feel like you're in an honest duel with these bosses, in which pure skill will reign supreme.
Like I touched on with comments on visual fidelity above, the game is absolutely gorgeous and filled with those "Fromsoft Moments" where you enter a new area atop a cliffside and pause just to gaze at the incredible vistas in front of you. Beauty is abound throughout the entire game, however I found myself most in awe when I played the ultimate "Ringed City" DLC. Such rich use of colour and scale is utilized to craft a believable environment of dilapidated buildings and past socieities.
While it wasn't perfect (it was too short!) Dark Souls 3 is a jaw dropping experience that engages the player from their first moments all the way into its conclusion. A massive improvement from Dark Souls 1 & 2, it improves on just about everything to make it clear how great of a job Fromsoft has done in gameplay innovation and creativity. I would absolutely recommend Dark Souls III.
La llama se apaga, el ciclo se repite, y donde una vez hubo un alma ahora solo quedan cenizas.
boring af
#slaveknight #sisterfriede #ineededthis #hmmthankyou
This was the first FromSoft soulsborne game that I played front to back without putting down at some point. The gameplay was addictive and the world it takes place in is really interesting and fun to explore, the bosses were good for the most part (I did have to cheese two but we don't talk about them) and they really made me feel like I was getting better at the game. My only complaint is that some of the areas were hard to traverse for one reason or another and a lot of the enemies scattered about the place were infuriating to deal with, I raged more in this game from them then I did from any of the boss fights. Apart from those slight issues though the game is an incredible experience and one I can see myself playing again.
Um espetáculo de videogame. Jogo feito nos mínimos detalhes para ninguém botar defeito em nada! Entregou fanservice, ação, desafio e fechou com chave de ouro a era do fogo; Nota 10/10 - obrigatório
holy fucking shit man
A fantastic entry and easily the best game in the franchise when it comes to bosses (and they're the main draw of the Souls games). Many cool designs and movesets with a good soundtrack make for some memorable fights.
Unfortunately Irithyll Dungeon exists. The person who made this ten-minute-long 'experience' is probably still laughing, knowing they've made the most unfair level in the game.
But overall an easy recommendation from my side, awesome game. If you've liked ANY other Souls game before, you'll very likely love this one too.
Unfortunately Irithyll Dungeon exists. The person who made this ten-minute-long 'experience' is probably still laughing, knowing they've made the most unfair level in the game.
But overall an easy recommendation from my side, awesome game. If you've liked ANY other Souls game before, you'll very likely love this one too.
This review contains spoilers
My first Fromsoftware game, I bounced off hard my first time, taking many tries to beat Iudex Gundyr, and gave up on the game before ever finding Vordt. In my defense, I was on m&kb, which didn't help any. Eventually I watched the DeModcracy's speedrun guide and decided to give the game a second chance. Armed with a build from the speedrun guide, map knowledge from the Polygon guide, and a controller (thank god), I was determined to beat it this time. The learning curve was still rough, but I didn't get completely stuck until the Abyss Watchers, and even then I eventually got gud enough to beat them. From there, the game went pretty smoothly until Sister Friede, where I got stuck for a full day. What an incredible experience. The Ringed City DLC was tough, but I was fine until I met Midir. I got seriously stuck again and eventually gave up and fought Gael first. Slave Knight Gael was my favorite boss in the whole game. He only took a few tries to beat, but it was definitely hard and felt truly climactic. Having a three phase boss with only one healthbar is incredible, and I hope to see it again in Shadow of the Erdtree. I did eventually go back and grind Midir until I beat him, which took hours, but I grew to appreciate him as the godlike adversary a great dragon should be. When I finally fought Soul of Cinder, I was probably a bit overlevelled and beat him first try, but it was a satisfying fight. Even after playing most of the other Fromsoft games, DS3 stands as one of the best.
The legacy of mediocrity reaches its grand finale.
Before I begin I need to address some things in case they are brought up in the comments, as I have had genuine idiots start fights with me on my previous souls-borne reviews over the dumbest capital G gamer shit. I will number these points and I have taken care to truncate them to be as concise and brief as possible, if you wish to skip on down to the review proper, control+F to “Dark Souls 3 was one of the most bland”. I understand that my reviews on this site are incredibly long as is, but I have to bring these up.
1. I have been accused by Souls fans on here of “Not explaining things” because the explanations I give are not to their personal satisfaction, just because someone’s point isn’t something you would like to digest, does not mean they did not explain something. When I say things like “Ranged Magic and Co-op break bosses cause they only focus one player cause their AI is only built for one player”, that is an explanation. I do not need to do animation by animation break downs of every single boss or regular enemy. That would make this hundreds of paragraphs long and that is ridiculous to expect.
2. I do not care about your personal play style or about how you played the game. This is a review. I have to take a different approach when playing the game for that reason. I have to test what mechanics are well made and which ones are poorly balanced and broken. I can not “just ignore it”, a flaw in a product does not vanish by just not paying attention to it, it is fair game to criticize it for existing as that is what a review does. I am giving the game an EXAM, this is not an ADVERTISEMENT.
3.Reviews and advertisements ARE NOT the same thing, a review tells you the pros and cons of a product, from a THIRD PARTY. An advertisement only tells you what the company trying to get you to buy the product wants you to think the selling points are. I am not here to validate your preconceived opinions of a game you already like (or dislike). If you like these games, that’s fine, but if you come at me, I will defend my position. If I have already debunked something, I am not going to waste my time (or yours) arguing against it again. Think before you respond.
4. If you want to play these games a certain way, have at it! But I am not here to validate said challenge runs or play styles, when I say a mechanic is pointless cause there is an objectively better option, I, and let me be CLEAR, AM NOT SAYING THAT YOU HAVE TO STOP PLAYING THAT WAY. I can not believe I have to clarify this to grown men and women on a video game website but Souls fans for what ever reason really struggle to comprehend this.
5. While in the last year and a half I have reviewed DLC packs and expansions as their own games, to remain consistent with my previous Souls reviews, I will integrate the DLC into the entire review proper. I will do this by using examples from both DLC packs when talking about the game play, graphics, music etc.
Dark Souls 3 was one of the most bland, designed by committee, boring jrpgs I have played in years. From soft has learned almost absolutely nothing from their previous four mediocre jrpgs in this mediocre franchise.
Now lets address the “almost” first. It took them five whole games, but they finally fixed the estus mechanic that was always some form of fucked in the previous games and ruined any kind of intended tension (Grasses, Humanities and Crystals in DeS, DS1 and 2, needing to grind for vials in BB). You can not use other recovery items this time, and you must choose between health and magic estus depending on your equipment load out. You are given a little more than enough estus to get through an area and your estus restores a good third of your health, making it actually feel important this time, rather than just another healing option that previous entries were plagued with.
This however comes at the expense of the level design. BloodBorne’s big rooms of nothing and long hallways with item nooks return with a vengeance here, you will never get lost as you just have to explore a big room’s nooks then go straight, or a narrow hallway’s nooks and go straight. It’s honestly pathetic at how under designed every area feels. There is very little if any genuine traps, with the only area in the game feeling genuinely designed being the catacombs with its arrow flinging button traps and massive bone spheres. But those aren’t even common enough in that area to feel threatening, only appearing once and twice respectively. Shortcuts also feel less like shortcuts more like regular elevators at this point, there isn’t a rewarding feeling in finding them, because the areas don’t take that long to navigate in the first place, given how much ground you cover while running back and forth.
There are some occasional stage hazards like giants and archers, but aside from a conjuring giant in the ringed city, killing these hazards eliminates them permanently and removes any further tension, the aformentioned giant isn’t even that much of a threat, as a few charged R2s from a high level weapon kill him in a few hits.
The game has completely given up any psychological aspect to the world and navigation. While DS2 and BB let you warp anywhere you have been from the start, they at the very least gave each of the bonfires in an area plenty of space to at least TRY and add some sort of tension, despite how easy those games were. DS3 has zero tension.
Bonfires are constant, take for example the undead settlement. The placement of the second bonfire in the undead settlement is laugh out loud worthy. Being right behind the first gate you stroll up to from when you arrive in 60 seconds. This is a problem all the way to the late game, after killing the Dragon slayer armour and lighting his bonfire, there is another bonfire right next to it at the entrance to the grand archives, for example.
The reason there are so many bonfires so close to each other can only mean one thing. It’s no secret that Sony and Namco use these games false perception of being “difficult” for marketing purposes, and with so many plentiful bonfires for checkpoints, you can just feel the cynicism in the design here as this is clearly made to help streamers and youtubers make quick and cheap “rage compilations” for free advertisement. If you actually play these games like the JRPGs they are however, that intended cynical design falls flat on its ass.
I will say this however, Dark Souls 3 is very good at conveying a sense of scale, due to how close the camera is to you this time and how tall the geometry is, the world feels massive. And the draw distance and landmarks of where you have been and will get too are a nice touch when at a high elevation.
On the surface it seems that from soft has tried to make ranged magic less useful and more balanced than previous games. The MP bar from Demons souls makes a return and the only way to restore it is with blue estus, and unless you start as a pyromancer or sorcerer, the bar is much smaller to compensate and try to make you use your melee weapon more. The stamina bar is also made small at the start to try and convince you to invest in endurance early to roll more often. Of course the gains to FP are quite high if you invest early on, I boosted all the way to 30 FP and had more than enough FP for boss fights so long as I took along two magic estus. And with as little as 30 endurance you’ll have more than enough stamina to block and roll your way to easy kills. With around 40 strength and 20 dex, 35 intelligence and 35 faith 100% of enemies and all but one boss in the game is a matter of when you will kill them than if.
A heavy investment in Vitality is also obviously needed to wear some pieces of heavy armour and for holding great shields that can fully absorb or mitigate attacks. And as long as you keep your preferred weapon upgraded (any weapon in the game will serve you well till the end game pretty much with few exceptions, I used an early game dark sword infused with a heavy gem for my entire run) you’ll find that the RPG mechanics of the game once again break the action parts of the advertised “tough” game play wide open once again.
You may be wondering why I listed my stats two paragraphs ago that high, and that’s due to the fact that exp gain in DS3 is very high, most likely to help along streamers so they can quickly power up and power through more of the game to make more cheap rage compilation content. A good 20 or so hours grinding in the high wall will make you more than strong enough for the endgame (most regular play throughs of this I studied had normal, everyday people, beating this in the mid 60s), hammering home just how easy these games have always been.
I said earlier that the attempt to balance out magic was only on the surface, and here’s why, enemy AI from the dregs outside the fire link shrine to the soul of cinder have no way of countering magic and pyromancies as their AI is entirely focused on on melee fighting, again, even if they don’t get stun locked when hit with ranged magic, they still zerg rush you like morons and by the time they reach you, if a regular enemy, you’ll be able to finish them off easily with your melee weapon. Even enemies that do cast magic make the effort to get close enough to you so can dash towards them, which makes them revert to melee mode, and ruins any potential solution to this classic flaw of the franchise.
Pyromanices are incredibly overpowered in the game, this seems intentional, given the massive circle jerk of fire related imagery and themes being drilled into you to drive the plot forward and establish the lore of the game. It’s not going to be an uncommon strategy to summon a helper for a boss and snipe them from afar with great fire ball and watch their HP melt. Some bosses are even more flammable solo, like aldritch, as simply having the grass crest shield, the chloranthony ring and a quick r1 finger is more than enough to kill him in less than 90 seconds with great fire ball.
The bosses haven’t improved from Bloodborne (or any of the previous four games really). They are still completely lost when you summon and snipe them with magic. And the DPS of either AI or especially a human partner is so high that the extra health they get from summons matters little. The bigger bosses are still camera devouring monstrosities that are genuinely laughable given how bad your visibility is when they get close, as the camera is not, and has never been, designed around enemies that large and it makes fighting them more a battle with the camera than the intended eldritch gods they want you to think you are fighting.
The game is also strangely obsessed with giving many of the bosses multiple phases. While this is common in JRPGs, these are more meant for skill checks to make sure the player isn’t mindlessly brute forcing their way through the game and in general are used sparingly. DS3 of course has dozens of multi phase bosses starting with the Abyss watchers all the way to the Soul of Cinder. To balance these fights out these bosses have less health than usual ones, but this makes the laughable action part of the combat even more so, because when you actually play these games as the RPGs they are instead of the circle button youtube rage compilations they aren’t. You see how poorly thought out so many aspects of them really are. As the lower health pools mean fuck all when you actually level up and equip properly.
There is one boss that is an exception to most of these criticisms. Dark eater Midir is an optional boss you fight in the ringed city, and the way you need to fight him is via casting poison magic. Since he has the most HP of any boss in the game, this means the poison will do 1K damage to him each time due to its scaling effect, which is critical to wear him down quickly, otherwise, you will most likely run out of estus due to how strong his attacks are. Co-op is a non factor for this fight as it will just bloat his health and fuck you over, and he resists magic and pyromancies. If he wasn’t huge and devoured the camera, the series could have had its first genuinely good boss fight, but alas, you should never underestimate souls games for underachieving.
The combat in general feels like it was retroactively changed to be more like bloodborne at the last minute. Enemies and bosses are much more aggressive and are more prone to use combo attacks, it’s clear that From soft has gone all in on the R1+circle button simulator jokes, as the hit boxes on boss and regular mook attacks are less about blocking and whacking R1 at the right time, and more rolling and then hitting R1. This becomes less and less of an issue the more you invest in stamina and upgrade your shields, but it’s still hilarious that from soft turned the combat into what even their own fans jokingly refer to it as.
Invasions are still annoying and immersion breaking. They’ve never added anything to enhance these games and have always been a tacked on multiplayer feature that should have died along with the 7th generation when that plagued damn near every game. Thankfully I always leveled high enough to mitigate this annoyance, but still had my fair share of them, which forced me to use the broken Alt F4 build before carrying on with the session. What’s especially funny is that the game has a separate PVP mode which isn’t available until very late in the game. Why invasions are even here anymore is baffling considering it was given its own dedicated mode that could prevent any of these annoyances from occurring in the first place.
Visually Dark souls 3 is as strong as you would expect from the series now. Stunning lighting and impressively huge level geometry are paired with detailed textures like scratches and gashes in your shields and armour, chips in your melee weapons sharp ends, and lovely cloth physics that flow elegantly and realistically. This is topped of with some amazing particle effects. Attacks feel like they have a strong effect when you see an explosion of sparks or magic dust.
Unfortunately due to the fire themed circle jerking in the story, your character pulsates an ugly and gaudy ember effect. This just bizarre to see as almost none of the enemies have this effect and look stunning regardless. We already know the player character is fire themed due to being called the ashen one, an ugly ember effect is not needed.
The animations are the best in the series so far, for as bland and mediocre as the boss fights are, the gorgeous and over exaggerated animations of the Abyss watchers unorthodox great sword swings, the animalistic claw swipes of the wyverns and midir, and many others are a sight to behold. Regular mook attacks are on the same level. With some like the tar demons pulsating pustules changing depending on the attack being an outstanding detail.
Menu UI has been fixed again, with BloodBorne's awful and unintuitive vertical menus gone. DS2’s horizontal menus return and the layouts do an excellent job of showing you where everything is, you even have dented tabs at the top this time to eliminate any possible confusion.
Musically, Dark Souls 3 is mostly quite bland.
While legendary video game composer Motoi Saukraba does return, he only does a handful of tracks this time. Said tracks are the best in the game, as Sakuraba is a master of his craft. Vordt of the Boreal Valley’s powerful horn section and thundering percussion set a strong first impression when you encounter the game’s first real boss. Then there’s Curse Rotted Greatwoods ominous strings and haunted chants, the foreboding violins of Crystal Sages, the scatter shot booming horns of Wolnir and the Bombastic fast paced tempo of Nameless King that sounds like it was ripped straight out of the Tales games. These will be the highlight of the game musically for you and don’t disappoint.
Most of the tracks are composed by Yuka Kitamura, and while she does a generally competent job, it’s very easy to notice she’s more or less just trying to copy Sakuraba’s style but rely more heavily on violins. The majority of her tracks start off the same way, with a big booming hook, followed by heavy use of violins. There is talent here and from what I have sampled of her Sekiro score (I have not played that one yet), she really comes into her own in that game. In the case of DS3, it seems more that she’s composing in a style that doesn’t suit her and it falls flat due to that.
I’ve saved talking about the story till last cause it’s nothing special.
In my Dark Souls 2 review I touched upon that the conclusive, makes you wonder what may happen but good enough endings to Dark Souls 1 was made completely pointless by the existence of Dark souls 2, the choices you can make in that game are also nullified by the existence of Dark souls 3, as both protagonists chose to link the flame and continue the world as is. Dark Souls 3, to its credit, does try and work with this buy having the linking of the flame become a tradition of sorts, which each successive linker becoming a lord of cinder. And toys with this tradition by having the linking of the flame not happen for what seems like hundreds or even thousands of years. The previous Lords of Cinder have gone mad during this time and it is up to the Ashen one to link the flame yet again before it is to late.
A solid premise on paper, but the execution is as expected, quite poor and under cooked. The story in typical souls fashion is presented in a very bare bones way and you are expected to get more from the lore of the world than the actual plot proper. You collect your lords of cinders ashes, and then make one of three choices that do nothing interesting with the souls formula. You become a god and subjugate the masses, link the flame and preserve the world, or let it die. All of these choices transpire in very brief cut scenes before fading to black. Given the series hasn’t continued at the time I post this, it seems that the choices are actual weighty choices now, but ring hollow with how bare bones the story is, being nothing but a quick premise, uninteresting macguffin hunt, and then rushed choices.
The side quests don’t feel fulfilling but this is to be expected, as they’ve always felt more like tacked on framing devices to get rings and spells rather than genuine side stories in a (on paper) rich world seemingly brimming with information. You will know that people like Greirat and Sirrius will die as that’s just how these games go at this point, and you’ll roll your eyes and power through to get the good equipment their quest will bring you in spite of their half assed implementation.
The lore this time isn’t even a modicum of interesting due to Lothric being Lordran several centuries in the future. DS3 is filled to the brim with lazy pandering towards DS1, like Oscars corpse being right in front of you at the start to give you your estus, Anor Londo briefly returning for cheap nostalgia claps, and the final boss fight taking place in the Kiln of the first flame which also plays Gywnn’s theme in the second phase, just to name a few of many eye rolling homages you will encounter.
The original characters for this game don’t feel interesting at all due the fact that they just contribute to the theme of cycles that the trilogy is built around. The lords of cinder for example are just people who did the same thing DS1 and 2 hero did and they’re nothing more than obstacles in your path due to how underwritten everything is.
Both DLC packs like the base game share the premise of a solid idea of a plot on paper but like the base game suffer from extremely skeletal, bare minimum execution to even forgetting the premise near the end in Ringed City’s case.
Arriendel’s premise of a magical world found inside a painting fading away due to the painting in the real world starting to rot due to not being preserved well is a very interesting idea. But aside from a few houses full of pus and fleshy walls, and anthropomorphic birds with huge rotten penises (yeah I don’t know how to parse that either), that premise is barely touched upon, and when you do finish the DLC, your entire journey feels like it was meaningless because you just accelerated what was already happening in the first place.
That leaves us with the Ringed City. Another interesting premise, the Ringed City which takes place in the same sort of dimension the Kiln is in, presents it’s self as a “Landfill of realms” so to speak. But this “Landfill of realms” is really just window dressing. Sure you’ll see buildings from Dark Souls 1 and 2 along the way, but the actual plot, if you can call it that, is about you confronting Gael at the end of the world to get a hold of the Dark soul, which he has been devouring pieces of before he returns to his niece in the painted world to save it. You then kill Gael and the hyped up “Grand finale of the soulsborne franchise” just kind of ends with him falling over, you don’t even get a cut scene for this. It makes the Ringed City feel incredibly unfinished, and given how I just described it in the entire paragraph, it probably was unfinished and rushed out.
Dark Souls 3 is a mediocre cap off to a mediocre franchise. Filled with both cynical design choices like plentiful bonfires to help along the uninformed twitch streamer rage compilation audience, to continued poorly designed boss fights, ok at best combat, under designed levels, bland music and a bare bones, by the numbers soulsborne plot that does nothing interesting with the formula. It was one of the blandest, most low effort JRPGs I have ever played and in this franchise that is saying something.
There has never been anything special about this series, its reputation as “difficult”, that comes from deceptive advertisements deliberately targeted at people who have never played a JRPG in their life, is far more anger inducing than any of the games could ever hope to be. Its mechanics it apes and takes from other series are also done much better in those inspirations. The only remarkable thing about these games has been an incredible talent at underachieving with their potential. From soft can not make action JRPGs with Zelda combat, but they can make interesting on paper worlds. A narrower, non RPG focus is something I feel would lead to a much better output from this developer, and the existence of Sekiro and Armoured core 6 at a glance feel like a breath of fresh air. Hopefully, those are better than the mediocrity this franchise has plagued the entire medium with since 2009.
4/10.
Before I begin I need to address some things in case they are brought up in the comments, as I have had genuine idiots start fights with me on my previous souls-borne reviews over the dumbest capital G gamer shit. I will number these points and I have taken care to truncate them to be as concise and brief as possible, if you wish to skip on down to the review proper, control+F to “Dark Souls 3 was one of the most bland”. I understand that my reviews on this site are incredibly long as is, but I have to bring these up.
1. I have been accused by Souls fans on here of “Not explaining things” because the explanations I give are not to their personal satisfaction, just because someone’s point isn’t something you would like to digest, does not mean they did not explain something. When I say things like “Ranged Magic and Co-op break bosses cause they only focus one player cause their AI is only built for one player”, that is an explanation. I do not need to do animation by animation break downs of every single boss or regular enemy. That would make this hundreds of paragraphs long and that is ridiculous to expect.
2. I do not care about your personal play style or about how you played the game. This is a review. I have to take a different approach when playing the game for that reason. I have to test what mechanics are well made and which ones are poorly balanced and broken. I can not “just ignore it”, a flaw in a product does not vanish by just not paying attention to it, it is fair game to criticize it for existing as that is what a review does. I am giving the game an EXAM, this is not an ADVERTISEMENT.
3.Reviews and advertisements ARE NOT the same thing, a review tells you the pros and cons of a product, from a THIRD PARTY. An advertisement only tells you what the company trying to get you to buy the product wants you to think the selling points are. I am not here to validate your preconceived opinions of a game you already like (or dislike). If you like these games, that’s fine, but if you come at me, I will defend my position. If I have already debunked something, I am not going to waste my time (or yours) arguing against it again. Think before you respond.
4. If you want to play these games a certain way, have at it! But I am not here to validate said challenge runs or play styles, when I say a mechanic is pointless cause there is an objectively better option, I, and let me be CLEAR, AM NOT SAYING THAT YOU HAVE TO STOP PLAYING THAT WAY. I can not believe I have to clarify this to grown men and women on a video game website but Souls fans for what ever reason really struggle to comprehend this.
5. While in the last year and a half I have reviewed DLC packs and expansions as their own games, to remain consistent with my previous Souls reviews, I will integrate the DLC into the entire review proper. I will do this by using examples from both DLC packs when talking about the game play, graphics, music etc.
Dark Souls 3 was one of the most bland, designed by committee, boring jrpgs I have played in years. From soft has learned almost absolutely nothing from their previous four mediocre jrpgs in this mediocre franchise.
Now lets address the “almost” first. It took them five whole games, but they finally fixed the estus mechanic that was always some form of fucked in the previous games and ruined any kind of intended tension (Grasses, Humanities and Crystals in DeS, DS1 and 2, needing to grind for vials in BB). You can not use other recovery items this time, and you must choose between health and magic estus depending on your equipment load out. You are given a little more than enough estus to get through an area and your estus restores a good third of your health, making it actually feel important this time, rather than just another healing option that previous entries were plagued with.
This however comes at the expense of the level design. BloodBorne’s big rooms of nothing and long hallways with item nooks return with a vengeance here, you will never get lost as you just have to explore a big room’s nooks then go straight, or a narrow hallway’s nooks and go straight. It’s honestly pathetic at how under designed every area feels. There is very little if any genuine traps, with the only area in the game feeling genuinely designed being the catacombs with its arrow flinging button traps and massive bone spheres. But those aren’t even common enough in that area to feel threatening, only appearing once and twice respectively. Shortcuts also feel less like shortcuts more like regular elevators at this point, there isn’t a rewarding feeling in finding them, because the areas don’t take that long to navigate in the first place, given how much ground you cover while running back and forth.
There are some occasional stage hazards like giants and archers, but aside from a conjuring giant in the ringed city, killing these hazards eliminates them permanently and removes any further tension, the aformentioned giant isn’t even that much of a threat, as a few charged R2s from a high level weapon kill him in a few hits.
The game has completely given up any psychological aspect to the world and navigation. While DS2 and BB let you warp anywhere you have been from the start, they at the very least gave each of the bonfires in an area plenty of space to at least TRY and add some sort of tension, despite how easy those games were. DS3 has zero tension.
Bonfires are constant, take for example the undead settlement. The placement of the second bonfire in the undead settlement is laugh out loud worthy. Being right behind the first gate you stroll up to from when you arrive in 60 seconds. This is a problem all the way to the late game, after killing the Dragon slayer armour and lighting his bonfire, there is another bonfire right next to it at the entrance to the grand archives, for example.
The reason there are so many bonfires so close to each other can only mean one thing. It’s no secret that Sony and Namco use these games false perception of being “difficult” for marketing purposes, and with so many plentiful bonfires for checkpoints, you can just feel the cynicism in the design here as this is clearly made to help streamers and youtubers make quick and cheap “rage compilations” for free advertisement. If you actually play these games like the JRPGs they are however, that intended cynical design falls flat on its ass.
I will say this however, Dark Souls 3 is very good at conveying a sense of scale, due to how close the camera is to you this time and how tall the geometry is, the world feels massive. And the draw distance and landmarks of where you have been and will get too are a nice touch when at a high elevation.
On the surface it seems that from soft has tried to make ranged magic less useful and more balanced than previous games. The MP bar from Demons souls makes a return and the only way to restore it is with blue estus, and unless you start as a pyromancer or sorcerer, the bar is much smaller to compensate and try to make you use your melee weapon more. The stamina bar is also made small at the start to try and convince you to invest in endurance early to roll more often. Of course the gains to FP are quite high if you invest early on, I boosted all the way to 30 FP and had more than enough FP for boss fights so long as I took along two magic estus. And with as little as 30 endurance you’ll have more than enough stamina to block and roll your way to easy kills. With around 40 strength and 20 dex, 35 intelligence and 35 faith 100% of enemies and all but one boss in the game is a matter of when you will kill them than if.
A heavy investment in Vitality is also obviously needed to wear some pieces of heavy armour and for holding great shields that can fully absorb or mitigate attacks. And as long as you keep your preferred weapon upgraded (any weapon in the game will serve you well till the end game pretty much with few exceptions, I used an early game dark sword infused with a heavy gem for my entire run) you’ll find that the RPG mechanics of the game once again break the action parts of the advertised “tough” game play wide open once again.
You may be wondering why I listed my stats two paragraphs ago that high, and that’s due to the fact that exp gain in DS3 is very high, most likely to help along streamers so they can quickly power up and power through more of the game to make more cheap rage compilation content. A good 20 or so hours grinding in the high wall will make you more than strong enough for the endgame (most regular play throughs of this I studied had normal, everyday people, beating this in the mid 60s), hammering home just how easy these games have always been.
I said earlier that the attempt to balance out magic was only on the surface, and here’s why, enemy AI from the dregs outside the fire link shrine to the soul of cinder have no way of countering magic and pyromancies as their AI is entirely focused on on melee fighting, again, even if they don’t get stun locked when hit with ranged magic, they still zerg rush you like morons and by the time they reach you, if a regular enemy, you’ll be able to finish them off easily with your melee weapon. Even enemies that do cast magic make the effort to get close enough to you so can dash towards them, which makes them revert to melee mode, and ruins any potential solution to this classic flaw of the franchise.
Pyromanices are incredibly overpowered in the game, this seems intentional, given the massive circle jerk of fire related imagery and themes being drilled into you to drive the plot forward and establish the lore of the game. It’s not going to be an uncommon strategy to summon a helper for a boss and snipe them from afar with great fire ball and watch their HP melt. Some bosses are even more flammable solo, like aldritch, as simply having the grass crest shield, the chloranthony ring and a quick r1 finger is more than enough to kill him in less than 90 seconds with great fire ball.
The bosses haven’t improved from Bloodborne (or any of the previous four games really). They are still completely lost when you summon and snipe them with magic. And the DPS of either AI or especially a human partner is so high that the extra health they get from summons matters little. The bigger bosses are still camera devouring monstrosities that are genuinely laughable given how bad your visibility is when they get close, as the camera is not, and has never been, designed around enemies that large and it makes fighting them more a battle with the camera than the intended eldritch gods they want you to think you are fighting.
The game is also strangely obsessed with giving many of the bosses multiple phases. While this is common in JRPGs, these are more meant for skill checks to make sure the player isn’t mindlessly brute forcing their way through the game and in general are used sparingly. DS3 of course has dozens of multi phase bosses starting with the Abyss watchers all the way to the Soul of Cinder. To balance these fights out these bosses have less health than usual ones, but this makes the laughable action part of the combat even more so, because when you actually play these games as the RPGs they are instead of the circle button youtube rage compilations they aren’t. You see how poorly thought out so many aspects of them really are. As the lower health pools mean fuck all when you actually level up and equip properly.
There is one boss that is an exception to most of these criticisms. Dark eater Midir is an optional boss you fight in the ringed city, and the way you need to fight him is via casting poison magic. Since he has the most HP of any boss in the game, this means the poison will do 1K damage to him each time due to its scaling effect, which is critical to wear him down quickly, otherwise, you will most likely run out of estus due to how strong his attacks are. Co-op is a non factor for this fight as it will just bloat his health and fuck you over, and he resists magic and pyromancies. If he wasn’t huge and devoured the camera, the series could have had its first genuinely good boss fight, but alas, you should never underestimate souls games for underachieving.
The combat in general feels like it was retroactively changed to be more like bloodborne at the last minute. Enemies and bosses are much more aggressive and are more prone to use combo attacks, it’s clear that From soft has gone all in on the R1+circle button simulator jokes, as the hit boxes on boss and regular mook attacks are less about blocking and whacking R1 at the right time, and more rolling and then hitting R1. This becomes less and less of an issue the more you invest in stamina and upgrade your shields, but it’s still hilarious that from soft turned the combat into what even their own fans jokingly refer to it as.
Invasions are still annoying and immersion breaking. They’ve never added anything to enhance these games and have always been a tacked on multiplayer feature that should have died along with the 7th generation when that plagued damn near every game. Thankfully I always leveled high enough to mitigate this annoyance, but still had my fair share of them, which forced me to use the broken Alt F4 build before carrying on with the session. What’s especially funny is that the game has a separate PVP mode which isn’t available until very late in the game. Why invasions are even here anymore is baffling considering it was given its own dedicated mode that could prevent any of these annoyances from occurring in the first place.
Visually Dark souls 3 is as strong as you would expect from the series now. Stunning lighting and impressively huge level geometry are paired with detailed textures like scratches and gashes in your shields and armour, chips in your melee weapons sharp ends, and lovely cloth physics that flow elegantly and realistically. This is topped of with some amazing particle effects. Attacks feel like they have a strong effect when you see an explosion of sparks or magic dust.
Unfortunately due to the fire themed circle jerking in the story, your character pulsates an ugly and gaudy ember effect. This just bizarre to see as almost none of the enemies have this effect and look stunning regardless. We already know the player character is fire themed due to being called the ashen one, an ugly ember effect is not needed.
The animations are the best in the series so far, for as bland and mediocre as the boss fights are, the gorgeous and over exaggerated animations of the Abyss watchers unorthodox great sword swings, the animalistic claw swipes of the wyverns and midir, and many others are a sight to behold. Regular mook attacks are on the same level. With some like the tar demons pulsating pustules changing depending on the attack being an outstanding detail.
Menu UI has been fixed again, with BloodBorne's awful and unintuitive vertical menus gone. DS2’s horizontal menus return and the layouts do an excellent job of showing you where everything is, you even have dented tabs at the top this time to eliminate any possible confusion.
Musically, Dark Souls 3 is mostly quite bland.
While legendary video game composer Motoi Saukraba does return, he only does a handful of tracks this time. Said tracks are the best in the game, as Sakuraba is a master of his craft. Vordt of the Boreal Valley’s powerful horn section and thundering percussion set a strong first impression when you encounter the game’s first real boss. Then there’s Curse Rotted Greatwoods ominous strings and haunted chants, the foreboding violins of Crystal Sages, the scatter shot booming horns of Wolnir and the Bombastic fast paced tempo of Nameless King that sounds like it was ripped straight out of the Tales games. These will be the highlight of the game musically for you and don’t disappoint.
Most of the tracks are composed by Yuka Kitamura, and while she does a generally competent job, it’s very easy to notice she’s more or less just trying to copy Sakuraba’s style but rely more heavily on violins. The majority of her tracks start off the same way, with a big booming hook, followed by heavy use of violins. There is talent here and from what I have sampled of her Sekiro score (I have not played that one yet), she really comes into her own in that game. In the case of DS3, it seems more that she’s composing in a style that doesn’t suit her and it falls flat due to that.
I’ve saved talking about the story till last cause it’s nothing special.
In my Dark Souls 2 review I touched upon that the conclusive, makes you wonder what may happen but good enough endings to Dark Souls 1 was made completely pointless by the existence of Dark souls 2, the choices you can make in that game are also nullified by the existence of Dark souls 3, as both protagonists chose to link the flame and continue the world as is. Dark Souls 3, to its credit, does try and work with this buy having the linking of the flame become a tradition of sorts, which each successive linker becoming a lord of cinder. And toys with this tradition by having the linking of the flame not happen for what seems like hundreds or even thousands of years. The previous Lords of Cinder have gone mad during this time and it is up to the Ashen one to link the flame yet again before it is to late.
A solid premise on paper, but the execution is as expected, quite poor and under cooked. The story in typical souls fashion is presented in a very bare bones way and you are expected to get more from the lore of the world than the actual plot proper. You collect your lords of cinders ashes, and then make one of three choices that do nothing interesting with the souls formula. You become a god and subjugate the masses, link the flame and preserve the world, or let it die. All of these choices transpire in very brief cut scenes before fading to black. Given the series hasn’t continued at the time I post this, it seems that the choices are actual weighty choices now, but ring hollow with how bare bones the story is, being nothing but a quick premise, uninteresting macguffin hunt, and then rushed choices.
The side quests don’t feel fulfilling but this is to be expected, as they’ve always felt more like tacked on framing devices to get rings and spells rather than genuine side stories in a (on paper) rich world seemingly brimming with information. You will know that people like Greirat and Sirrius will die as that’s just how these games go at this point, and you’ll roll your eyes and power through to get the good equipment their quest will bring you in spite of their half assed implementation.
The lore this time isn’t even a modicum of interesting due to Lothric being Lordran several centuries in the future. DS3 is filled to the brim with lazy pandering towards DS1, like Oscars corpse being right in front of you at the start to give you your estus, Anor Londo briefly returning for cheap nostalgia claps, and the final boss fight taking place in the Kiln of the first flame which also plays Gywnn’s theme in the second phase, just to name a few of many eye rolling homages you will encounter.
The original characters for this game don’t feel interesting at all due the fact that they just contribute to the theme of cycles that the trilogy is built around. The lords of cinder for example are just people who did the same thing DS1 and 2 hero did and they’re nothing more than obstacles in your path due to how underwritten everything is.
Both DLC packs like the base game share the premise of a solid idea of a plot on paper but like the base game suffer from extremely skeletal, bare minimum execution to even forgetting the premise near the end in Ringed City’s case.
Arriendel’s premise of a magical world found inside a painting fading away due to the painting in the real world starting to rot due to not being preserved well is a very interesting idea. But aside from a few houses full of pus and fleshy walls, and anthropomorphic birds with huge rotten penises (yeah I don’t know how to parse that either), that premise is barely touched upon, and when you do finish the DLC, your entire journey feels like it was meaningless because you just accelerated what was already happening in the first place.
That leaves us with the Ringed City. Another interesting premise, the Ringed City which takes place in the same sort of dimension the Kiln is in, presents it’s self as a “Landfill of realms” so to speak. But this “Landfill of realms” is really just window dressing. Sure you’ll see buildings from Dark Souls 1 and 2 along the way, but the actual plot, if you can call it that, is about you confronting Gael at the end of the world to get a hold of the Dark soul, which he has been devouring pieces of before he returns to his niece in the painted world to save it. You then kill Gael and the hyped up “Grand finale of the soulsborne franchise” just kind of ends with him falling over, you don’t even get a cut scene for this. It makes the Ringed City feel incredibly unfinished, and given how I just described it in the entire paragraph, it probably was unfinished and rushed out.
Dark Souls 3 is a mediocre cap off to a mediocre franchise. Filled with both cynical design choices like plentiful bonfires to help along the uninformed twitch streamer rage compilation audience, to continued poorly designed boss fights, ok at best combat, under designed levels, bland music and a bare bones, by the numbers soulsborne plot that does nothing interesting with the formula. It was one of the blandest, most low effort JRPGs I have ever played and in this franchise that is saying something.
There has never been anything special about this series, its reputation as “difficult”, that comes from deceptive advertisements deliberately targeted at people who have never played a JRPG in their life, is far more anger inducing than any of the games could ever hope to be. Its mechanics it apes and takes from other series are also done much better in those inspirations. The only remarkable thing about these games has been an incredible talent at underachieving with their potential. From soft can not make action JRPGs with Zelda combat, but they can make interesting on paper worlds. A narrower, non RPG focus is something I feel would lead to a much better output from this developer, and the existence of Sekiro and Armoured core 6 at a glance feel like a breath of fresh air. Hopefully, those are better than the mediocrity this franchise has plagued the entire medium with since 2009.
4/10.
I don't think I've ever been more conflicted after having finished a video game than I have been with Dark Souls III.
I'm going to get my praise out of the way, since you've likely heard similar things said by many others by now: The story and new lore, while nowhere near as thematically interesting to me, is still a good addition to existing canon. This game has many of the best fights in the entire series (although it also has a fair number that I don't particularly care for), and the series' combat is at its' peak here. General gameplay has been polished as well; the game looks and feels great to play as a result. When the game is firing on all cylinders, it is a sight to behold.
It's good enough to briefly make me forget all the issues I have with the game up to those points. Because, for as good as Dark Souls III plays, it also comes across as a very scared game. Dark Souls III is scared to take risks, scared to step on anyone's toes, maybe even scared of being a Dark Souls game.
Both of the prior Dark Souls games have had parts that people have since looked unfavorably towards. Blighttown, The Gutter, and so on. You could honestly google any area in Dark Souls II and find someone that swears up and down that it's the worst area (or game, if you're stupid) Fromsoft has ever created. It's something I've always found funny, because some of the previously mentioned areas have been some of my favorites in the series for how well they're able to force the player to respect their environment and really tread cautiously. They're a brutal reminder to the player that you are outside of your depth but have no choice but press on. Finding Blighttown feels like you're walking into a place that you are not supposed to find, it's immediately so openly hostile and dangerous to you that at times it can be genuinely scary. Dark Souls III doesn't really have a clean analog besides a veeery brief segment of Ringed City where you run through an active war zone, and that's because Dark Souls III feels like it doesn't want people to possibly dislike anything about it. It's supposed to be the climax of the series and everything it represents, it can't risk anything the way Dark Souls I could risk everything to cement an entirely new genre of game into the cultural landscape.
(Yes, I know Farron Keep is the new poison swamp area analogy, but it feels so sanitized and unthreatening compared to the nightmare that was trying to go through The Gutter fearing for my torch timer and scrambling for a bonfire.)
It frustrates me seeing this game fully commit to being a 'hard game where you fight hard boss fights' instead of what I really appreciated about the first two games: Dangerous forays into fallen civilizations, complete with now-mad inhabitants and crumbling architecture. Dark Souls III feels so less inclined to be another example of virtual archeology and more than happy to lean into the popular cultural idea of what Dark Souls was at a surface level. It takes the convenience of Dark Souls II's bonfire system with none of the interesting metroidvania trappings of its predecessor and willingly abandons any attempts to play with cohesion, whether to the degree of incredible density found in Dark Souls I or the nonsensical map of Dark Souls II. Dark Souls III just wants to be an action game, it wants you to take a single road throughout the journey, only pulling over briefly to go beat something's head in before getting back on that road, pushing ever closer to your goal. I want to be clear that I am not trying to paint embracing linearity as a de facto negative when it comes to game design; you can see a very similar trajectory taken within the design of the Devil May Cry games that ultimately helped fine-tune those games to perfection. What I take issue with is the cultural cost that embracing linearity has done for Dark Souls, and how that has affected the way people have interacted and viewed the series ever since. It's sad, thinking I'll never play a game as tightly designed as Dark Souls I ever again, or play a sequel as divisive and willing to break everything that came before it the way Dark Souls II did. Dark Souls III feels content to find some decisively less interesting middle-ground between both games in favor of ensuring the series can finally stick the landing.
Maybe it's fitting then, that in a game about the fading of an era that Dark Souls III itself has faded from much of what I loved about the first two games. Just as Lordran, Drangleic, and now Lothric have reinterpreted their predecessors and sought to alter the status quo, Dark Souls III marks a departure from previous Dark Souls ideology, doing away with the genius world structure of it's forefathers in favor of a land that feels dispassionately conventional. When the game wants to come out of its' shell, it's out. It shows you it can be dramatic, somber, explosive, because at the end of the day, it IS Dark Souls.
It's just buried under a mountain of ash.
I'm going to get my praise out of the way, since you've likely heard similar things said by many others by now: The story and new lore, while nowhere near as thematically interesting to me, is still a good addition to existing canon. This game has many of the best fights in the entire series (although it also has a fair number that I don't particularly care for), and the series' combat is at its' peak here. General gameplay has been polished as well; the game looks and feels great to play as a result. When the game is firing on all cylinders, it is a sight to behold.
It's good enough to briefly make me forget all the issues I have with the game up to those points. Because, for as good as Dark Souls III plays, it also comes across as a very scared game. Dark Souls III is scared to take risks, scared to step on anyone's toes, maybe even scared of being a Dark Souls game.
Both of the prior Dark Souls games have had parts that people have since looked unfavorably towards. Blighttown, The Gutter, and so on. You could honestly google any area in Dark Souls II and find someone that swears up and down that it's the worst area (or game, if you're stupid) Fromsoft has ever created. It's something I've always found funny, because some of the previously mentioned areas have been some of my favorites in the series for how well they're able to force the player to respect their environment and really tread cautiously. They're a brutal reminder to the player that you are outside of your depth but have no choice but press on. Finding Blighttown feels like you're walking into a place that you are not supposed to find, it's immediately so openly hostile and dangerous to you that at times it can be genuinely scary. Dark Souls III doesn't really have a clean analog besides a veeery brief segment of Ringed City where you run through an active war zone, and that's because Dark Souls III feels like it doesn't want people to possibly dislike anything about it. It's supposed to be the climax of the series and everything it represents, it can't risk anything the way Dark Souls I could risk everything to cement an entirely new genre of game into the cultural landscape.
(Yes, I know Farron Keep is the new poison swamp area analogy, but it feels so sanitized and unthreatening compared to the nightmare that was trying to go through The Gutter fearing for my torch timer and scrambling for a bonfire.)
It frustrates me seeing this game fully commit to being a 'hard game where you fight hard boss fights' instead of what I really appreciated about the first two games: Dangerous forays into fallen civilizations, complete with now-mad inhabitants and crumbling architecture. Dark Souls III feels so less inclined to be another example of virtual archeology and more than happy to lean into the popular cultural idea of what Dark Souls was at a surface level. It takes the convenience of Dark Souls II's bonfire system with none of the interesting metroidvania trappings of its predecessor and willingly abandons any attempts to play with cohesion, whether to the degree of incredible density found in Dark Souls I or the nonsensical map of Dark Souls II. Dark Souls III just wants to be an action game, it wants you to take a single road throughout the journey, only pulling over briefly to go beat something's head in before getting back on that road, pushing ever closer to your goal. I want to be clear that I am not trying to paint embracing linearity as a de facto negative when it comes to game design; you can see a very similar trajectory taken within the design of the Devil May Cry games that ultimately helped fine-tune those games to perfection. What I take issue with is the cultural cost that embracing linearity has done for Dark Souls, and how that has affected the way people have interacted and viewed the series ever since. It's sad, thinking I'll never play a game as tightly designed as Dark Souls I ever again, or play a sequel as divisive and willing to break everything that came before it the way Dark Souls II did. Dark Souls III feels content to find some decisively less interesting middle-ground between both games in favor of ensuring the series can finally stick the landing.
Maybe it's fitting then, that in a game about the fading of an era that Dark Souls III itself has faded from much of what I loved about the first two games. Just as Lordran, Drangleic, and now Lothric have reinterpreted their predecessors and sought to alter the status quo, Dark Souls III marks a departure from previous Dark Souls ideology, doing away with the genius world structure of it's forefathers in favor of a land that feels dispassionately conventional. When the game wants to come out of its' shell, it's out. It shows you it can be dramatic, somber, explosive, because at the end of the day, it IS Dark Souls.
It's just buried under a mountain of ash.
It may be controversial, but this is the best of the trilogy and has the best bosses of any From Software game.
The fights have just the right speed and the bosses are just perfectly balanced.
What it lacks in level design is compensated in just the best Dark Souls experience.
The fights have just the right speed and the bosses are just perfectly balanced.
What it lacks in level design is compensated in just the best Dark Souls experience.
Simplesmente meu Dark Souls favorito, desde 2018 que tento jogar, mas nunca clicava comigo, e felizmente após jogar a frânquia inteira, tive uma das melhores experiências de todas nesse game.
DS3 tem muitas melhorias em relação aos seus 2 anteriores, e com certeza os gráficos são as mais visíveis; Realmente, o impacto das gerações de consoles fez muito efeito, cada lugar é mais detalhado, melhor iluminado, melhor desenhado, uma direção de arte mais aprimorada e com mais liberdade, e obviamente mais bonito, e sinceramente, após jogar DS1 e 2 em sequência, a primeira impressão com esse jogo é muito satisfátoria, e acho que se mantém lindo até os dias de hoje.
Seguindo com a gameplay, que é por MUITO, a melhor da triologia, muito mais fluída e divertida, o combate é evoluído e mais gostoso de jogar, as armas são todas bem maneiras, as armaduras em geral são lindas, e pra mim a melhor parte, as Weapon Arts, com certeza a melhor adição no combate, é simplesmente muito legal pegar uma arma nova e ao usar seu golpe especial, ele ser COMPLETAMENTE DIFERENTE de outras armas, isso trás uma variedade muito boa pro jogo, e te instiga a mudar seu jeito de jogar várias vezes.
Posso dizer também que esse jogo tem uma das MELHORES lutas contra chefes que eu já vi em todos os jogos que joguei, praticamente todos são muito marcantes e memoráveis, lutar com os bosses era quase um prêmio, acabava que olhar para o visual e imponência dos chefes sempre me deixava boquiaberto , Nameless King, Abyss Watchers, Dançarina e entre outros, e olha que nem citei os chefes de dlcs.
Pra somar as lutas de chefes, o game ainda tem uma trilha sonora IMPECÁVEL, era literalmente um show a parte no meio das lutas, eu sinceramente tenho guardado na memória a minha emoção e sensação de ouvir pela primeira vez os temas de alguns chefes no jogo, e até hoje só de ouvir o tema do Vordt eu fico arrepiado.
O jogo ainda tem mais um monte de qualidades, como uma progressão satisfatória, boas áreas, inimigos variados, ambientação fod4 e etc, mas não vou me aprofundar muito nessas.
Já que nem tudo são flores, infelizmente esse game tem algumas coisas que eu não curto muito, sendo elas:
A duração do jogo, eu acho ele consideravelmente mais curto que seus anteriores.
O excesso de fan service, que por mais que tenha MUITAS coisas legais e seja bem divertido, em outros momentos acaba dando um ar de falta personalidade/conteúdo próprio.
O mundo é bem menos interligado que o DS1, usando MUITOS teleportes, e tendo muitas fogueiras, chegando ao ponto de que em uma área tem uma bonfire na frente da outra.
E basicamente é isso, eu amo muito esse jogo, foi uma experiência incrível e marcante, encerra de forma maestral essa triologia lendária, e sem dúvidas alcançou o mais alto nível da série até seu lançamento
DS3 tem muitas melhorias em relação aos seus 2 anteriores, e com certeza os gráficos são as mais visíveis; Realmente, o impacto das gerações de consoles fez muito efeito, cada lugar é mais detalhado, melhor iluminado, melhor desenhado, uma direção de arte mais aprimorada e com mais liberdade, e obviamente mais bonito, e sinceramente, após jogar DS1 e 2 em sequência, a primeira impressão com esse jogo é muito satisfátoria, e acho que se mantém lindo até os dias de hoje.
Seguindo com a gameplay, que é por MUITO, a melhor da triologia, muito mais fluída e divertida, o combate é evoluído e mais gostoso de jogar, as armas são todas bem maneiras, as armaduras em geral são lindas, e pra mim a melhor parte, as Weapon Arts, com certeza a melhor adição no combate, é simplesmente muito legal pegar uma arma nova e ao usar seu golpe especial, ele ser COMPLETAMENTE DIFERENTE de outras armas, isso trás uma variedade muito boa pro jogo, e te instiga a mudar seu jeito de jogar várias vezes.
Posso dizer também que esse jogo tem uma das MELHORES lutas contra chefes que eu já vi em todos os jogos que joguei, praticamente todos são muito marcantes e memoráveis, lutar com os bosses era quase um prêmio, acabava que olhar para o visual e imponência dos chefes sempre me deixava boquiaberto , Nameless King, Abyss Watchers, Dançarina e entre outros, e olha que nem citei os chefes de dlcs.
Pra somar as lutas de chefes, o game ainda tem uma trilha sonora IMPECÁVEL, era literalmente um show a parte no meio das lutas, eu sinceramente tenho guardado na memória a minha emoção e sensação de ouvir pela primeira vez os temas de alguns chefes no jogo, e até hoje só de ouvir o tema do Vordt eu fico arrepiado.
O jogo ainda tem mais um monte de qualidades, como uma progressão satisfatória, boas áreas, inimigos variados, ambientação fod4 e etc, mas não vou me aprofundar muito nessas.
Já que nem tudo são flores, infelizmente esse game tem algumas coisas que eu não curto muito, sendo elas:
A duração do jogo, eu acho ele consideravelmente mais curto que seus anteriores.
O excesso de fan service, que por mais que tenha MUITAS coisas legais e seja bem divertido, em outros momentos acaba dando um ar de falta personalidade/conteúdo próprio.
O mundo é bem menos interligado que o DS1, usando MUITOS teleportes, e tendo muitas fogueiras, chegando ao ponto de que em uma área tem uma bonfire na frente da outra.
E basicamente é isso, eu amo muito esse jogo, foi uma experiência incrível e marcante, encerra de forma maestral essa triologia lendária, e sem dúvidas alcançou o mais alto nível da série até seu lançamento
Its the super polished, fan service filled Victory Lap finale to the Souls series. Its a good step up from DS2, while suffering from diminishing returns. I feel myself loving its art style while getting annyoid by its super linear gameworld. I adore some of the boss fights like the Abyss Watchers, only to return to a world to offers me nothing I havent seen done better by this very series. At the very atleast this feeling is kinda fitting for a world that presents itself a rotting corpse screaming that it wants to end.
"Oh my god... I get it now."
I don’t really have much to yap about... Dark Souls III just might actually be one of the best games I’ve ever played.
Gameplay is tight and concise. Level design is really great with visually easy to navigate levels -even without something like a map. There are some annoying levels here and there but they are few and far between and ultimately don’t affect my opinion of the game.
Almost every single boss fight was incredibly fun and well designed, and there were almost no instances where I died and felt cheated (which is a pretty common occurrence for me in a certain other FromSoft game). Dark Souls III doesn’t overstay its welcome, but also doesn’t feel too short -it feels like it lasts the perfect amount of time that it needed to.
The story is interesting and I was always interested to find out more about the world when I had the chance to. While I have a few issues with how questing works (it often feels like you’re meant to play with the wiki open on a second monitor) I presume this is to encourage NG+ playthroughs so I can overlook it.
All in all any issues I have with Dark Souls III are ultimately minor and don’t affect my overall opinion of the game. Dark Souls III is fun, it's interesting, and it’s an experience I’m so glad to have had.
Ok I lied, I had plenty to yap about...
5/5.
I don’t really have much to yap about... Dark Souls III just might actually be one of the best games I’ve ever played.
Gameplay is tight and concise. Level design is really great with visually easy to navigate levels -even without something like a map. There are some annoying levels here and there but they are few and far between and ultimately don’t affect my opinion of the game.
Almost every single boss fight was incredibly fun and well designed, and there were almost no instances where I died and felt cheated (which is a pretty common occurrence for me in a certain other FromSoft game). Dark Souls III doesn’t overstay its welcome, but also doesn’t feel too short -it feels like it lasts the perfect amount of time that it needed to.
The story is interesting and I was always interested to find out more about the world when I had the chance to. While I have a few issues with how questing works (it often feels like you’re meant to play with the wiki open on a second monitor) I presume this is to encourage NG+ playthroughs so I can overlook it.
All in all any issues I have with Dark Souls III are ultimately minor and don’t affect my overall opinion of the game. Dark Souls III is fun, it's interesting, and it’s an experience I’m so glad to have had.
Ok I lied, I had plenty to yap about...
5/5.
Five stars alone for the High Lord Wolnir fight. I mean yeah it's one of the less challenging ones, but that first time you pick up the chalice and you see the big skeleton crawling up the pitch black hill towards you? That's called atmosphere, baby
Almost reaches the highs of dark souls 1 while improving on every mechanic set by its predecessors
Esse é o jogo souls que eu mais tenho relação de amor e ódio, ao mesmo tempo que eu amo a lore, o design dos mundos e dos bosses, eu também detesto algumas decisões que eles tomaram.
As áreas desse jogo são lindas, já perdi a conta de quantas vezes eu parei e admirei o horizonte, depois de DS2, esse é o soulslike mais bonito que eu já joguei (até agora), e a exploração é uma das melhores da franquia, mesmo muitas vezes parecendo que o jogo não queira que você explore, por ter muito inimigo filha da puta, valendo mais a pena rushar, eu ainda assim gosto da exploração desse jogo, pra mim é um dos pontos altos.
Os bosses desse jogo são os melhores de toda a trilogia, o único boss que eu detesto é o Deacons of the Deep, mas tirando ele, só existe chefe incrível, com OST lindíssima, moveset muito interessante, designs lindos e lore perfeita, eu realmente fiquei muito admirado com os bosses, foi o souls que eu mais me divertir lutando contra eles, um salve especial para o Aldrich, a Dançarina do Vale Boreal, o Oceiros e o Nameles King.
Agora que eu já elogiei o jogo, eu quero reclamar um pouquinho dele, e vamos começa pela ambientação do jogo, não me leve a mal, ela é muito boa, mas ela não parece que foi feita pra um Dark Souls, o jogo passa muito mais vibe de Bloodborne do que Dark Souls, o que me causou um tremendo de um estranhamento no começo.
Uma outra coisa que eu não curto nem um pouco desse jogo é o balanceamento de dano, um ataque básico de um inimigo comum da MUITO dano, o que foi uma coisa que me tirou do sério várias vezes, pois mesmo você tendo uma vida que atravessa a tela inteira, os inimigos davam muito dano, fazendo muita das vezes você ter que fritar o cérebro pra poder sair de uma luta com uma quantidade boa de Estus, valendo mais apena rushar uma área do que lutar com os inimigos.
Em resumo, é um jogo muito bom e que fechou com chave de ouro essa história incrível, de todos os souls, esse foi o que eu mais me diverti jogando, mesmo tendo umas coisas que me tiraram do sério, eu ainda amo esse jogo.
As áreas desse jogo são lindas, já perdi a conta de quantas vezes eu parei e admirei o horizonte, depois de DS2, esse é o soulslike mais bonito que eu já joguei (até agora), e a exploração é uma das melhores da franquia, mesmo muitas vezes parecendo que o jogo não queira que você explore, por ter muito inimigo filha da puta, valendo mais a pena rushar, eu ainda assim gosto da exploração desse jogo, pra mim é um dos pontos altos.
Os bosses desse jogo são os melhores de toda a trilogia, o único boss que eu detesto é o Deacons of the Deep, mas tirando ele, só existe chefe incrível, com OST lindíssima, moveset muito interessante, designs lindos e lore perfeita, eu realmente fiquei muito admirado com os bosses, foi o souls que eu mais me divertir lutando contra eles, um salve especial para o Aldrich, a Dançarina do Vale Boreal, o Oceiros e o Nameles King.
Agora que eu já elogiei o jogo, eu quero reclamar um pouquinho dele, e vamos começa pela ambientação do jogo, não me leve a mal, ela é muito boa, mas ela não parece que foi feita pra um Dark Souls, o jogo passa muito mais vibe de Bloodborne do que Dark Souls, o que me causou um tremendo de um estranhamento no começo.
Uma outra coisa que eu não curto nem um pouco desse jogo é o balanceamento de dano, um ataque básico de um inimigo comum da MUITO dano, o que foi uma coisa que me tirou do sério várias vezes, pois mesmo você tendo uma vida que atravessa a tela inteira, os inimigos davam muito dano, fazendo muita das vezes você ter que fritar o cérebro pra poder sair de uma luta com uma quantidade boa de Estus, valendo mais apena rushar uma área do que lutar com os inimigos.
Em resumo, é um jogo muito bom e que fechou com chave de ouro essa história incrível, de todos os souls, esse foi o que eu mais me diverti jogando, mesmo tendo umas coisas que me tiraram do sério, eu ainda amo esse jogo.
No words to describe this game and the DLCs man, unreal feeling after hearing the credits.
this is one of those games, easy 10/10 incredible incredible incredible this was one of the best things I've ever played, from start to finish quality AND quantity, such a consistent perfect game I cannot explain it
this is an incredible experience I literally cannot say anything more, played the start of the game then had to stop due to an unfortunate lung collapse that put me in the hospital for a week and I've been dreaming about it ever since, AND IT FUCKING DELIVERED
thank you Miyazaki for this perfect masterpiece
this is an incredible experience I literally cannot say anything more, played the start of the game then had to stop due to an unfortunate lung collapse that put me in the hospital for a week and I've been dreaming about it ever since, AND IT FUCKING DELIVERED
thank you Miyazaki for this perfect masterpiece
I love this game from the moment I first loaded in the menu everything in this game is great the bosses, music, weapons, lore, characters and a lot more are done to absolute perfection watching the world of dark souls come to an end was amazing. And has one of the best final bosses to a game ever. The ringed city is literally perfection Slave knight Gael is the best boss fight in gaming by a mile overall it’s one of the few games I’d classify as almost perfect
Dark Souls III is so beautiful and honestly profound in many, many ways, but it's also a game with a lot of flaws. For most people these flaws probably won't get in the way of the overall experience, but for me they definitely did. And since most people reading this review probably know what this game already does well (bosses, atmosphere, etc.) I want to put down my thoughts for what I found really frustrating about this game.
My god, the camera in this game is unbelievably bad. I can't remember the last time I had this many camera issues in a game; basically every play session it reared its ugly head. I never had this issue with DS1 or DS2, so I have to assume this is some weird byproduct of the new engine. Regardless, it really sucks and I can't in good conscience not mention this because it did bring the overall experience down.
Side quest design in this game is pretty dumb. In DS2 I was able to intuit a lot of what I was supposed to do for NPC questlines. Some of them were along the main critical path which made progressing these quests easier and way more fun. I ended up going into DS3 a lot more blind than in the other games, and overall that was a good idea, but I swear it is impossible to find any of these questlines without using a guide. As a result I failed basically every quest in the game due to making the wrong choice and/or not finding the next step in time. Really unfortunate because the characters in this game are great and I wanted to learn more about them.
I don't think either of these are really "skill issue" things, it's more just rough design that could have been ironed out with more time, I think. These were really the biggest issues that prevent me from giving the game a 5/5, because at times it really feels like it deserves that score. Friede and Gael gotta be some of the greatest boss fights in all of gaming, the soundtrack is now one of my favorites, and the conclusion to this series was wonderful to see.
My god, the camera in this game is unbelievably bad. I can't remember the last time I had this many camera issues in a game; basically every play session it reared its ugly head. I never had this issue with DS1 or DS2, so I have to assume this is some weird byproduct of the new engine. Regardless, it really sucks and I can't in good conscience not mention this because it did bring the overall experience down.
Side quest design in this game is pretty dumb. In DS2 I was able to intuit a lot of what I was supposed to do for NPC questlines. Some of them were along the main critical path which made progressing these quests easier and way more fun. I ended up going into DS3 a lot more blind than in the other games, and overall that was a good idea, but I swear it is impossible to find any of these questlines without using a guide. As a result I failed basically every quest in the game due to making the wrong choice and/or not finding the next step in time. Really unfortunate because the characters in this game are great and I wanted to learn more about them.
I don't think either of these are really "skill issue" things, it's more just rough design that could have been ironed out with more time, I think. These were really the biggest issues that prevent me from giving the game a 5/5, because at times it really feels like it deserves that score. Friede and Gael gotta be some of the greatest boss fights in all of gaming, the soundtrack is now one of my favorites, and the conclusion to this series was wonderful to see.