The third entry in the Dark Souls series accomplishes what is expected from the series; there are many levels to explore (poisonous swamp unfortunately included), secrets to find, bosses to defeat and the writing is as ambiguous as always.
Among the new additions to the series "weapon arts" stand out to me, and I think they are pretty good because now weapons can have unique skills without relying on durability like in previous entries. The addition of focus points is a mixed bag if one considers magic users, who also got the short end of the stick in other ways.
New enemies in general are very intimidating with their horrid appearance and fast attacks, but I was surprised by how easy I found the game. I would go as far as to say this is the easiest entry in the series, but that could be good or bad depending on who you ask.
However I'm a little disappointed with the gameplay because it feels like a faster, less refined version of Dark Souls 1 more so than a sequel to Dark Souls 2, which introduced many welcome mechanics that have been dropped. Instant estus healing is back, there are little consequences for running out of stamina and NG+ is devoid of new content besides a single weapon and a few new rings that are worse than what the player can obtain in the Ringed City DLC.
The faster pace is also detrimental to defensive play styles. Poise now only works during certain weapon animations and heavy armor is only marginally better than its medium equivalent, but requires a far larger investment on vitality in order to wear. Level 1 stamina is also sufficient to roll half a dozen times in a row, but blocking with a shield depletes it as fast as in any other entry.
As a result, R1 spam friendly weapons such as straight swords are the optimal way to play and I find that rather disheartening. Every Dark Souls game can be broken in some way by min-maxing, but I think this is the only entry where the game is broken right our of the box. It is still possible to beat the game with other builds, but the outstanding build variety from the previous entry is sadly gone.
The flip side is that if you enjoy playing dexterity or quality builds that focus on dodging and parrying then this will probably be your favorite game in the series. The loss of build variety is somehow compensated by this.
As for the setting, I can't omit to also mention how little originality there is in this title, I wish it had more original content and fewer callbacks to previous entries, especially the first game. I really dislike constant, obvious references, and Dark Souls 2 wasn't that much better in this regard, but at least you had to get to NG+ before the writers threw their creativity out a window. However, I do recognize that this is a very subjective opinion and most people probably don't mind it, I just think that it's cheap.
To conclude, I got very critical towards the end, but I genuinely believe Dark Souls 3 is an excellent game and a great conclusion to the series regardless. It's only that after 500 hours of play across the entire series these small grievances start to accumulate, but I would definitely recommend Dark Souls 3 and I'm probably gonna play it again in the future sometime.
Among the new additions to the series "weapon arts" stand out to me, and I think they are pretty good because now weapons can have unique skills without relying on durability like in previous entries. The addition of focus points is a mixed bag if one considers magic users, who also got the short end of the stick in other ways.
New enemies in general are very intimidating with their horrid appearance and fast attacks, but I was surprised by how easy I found the game. I would go as far as to say this is the easiest entry in the series, but that could be good or bad depending on who you ask.
However I'm a little disappointed with the gameplay because it feels like a faster, less refined version of Dark Souls 1 more so than a sequel to Dark Souls 2, which introduced many welcome mechanics that have been dropped. Instant estus healing is back, there are little consequences for running out of stamina and NG+ is devoid of new content besides a single weapon and a few new rings that are worse than what the player can obtain in the Ringed City DLC.
The faster pace is also detrimental to defensive play styles. Poise now only works during certain weapon animations and heavy armor is only marginally better than its medium equivalent, but requires a far larger investment on vitality in order to wear. Level 1 stamina is also sufficient to roll half a dozen times in a row, but blocking with a shield depletes it as fast as in any other entry.
As a result, R1 spam friendly weapons such as straight swords are the optimal way to play and I find that rather disheartening. Every Dark Souls game can be broken in some way by min-maxing, but I think this is the only entry where the game is broken right our of the box. It is still possible to beat the game with other builds, but the outstanding build variety from the previous entry is sadly gone.
The flip side is that if you enjoy playing dexterity or quality builds that focus on dodging and parrying then this will probably be your favorite game in the series. The loss of build variety is somehow compensated by this.
As for the setting, I can't omit to also mention how little originality there is in this title, I wish it had more original content and fewer callbacks to previous entries, especially the first game. I really dislike constant, obvious references, and Dark Souls 2 wasn't that much better in this regard, but at least you had to get to NG+ before the writers threw their creativity out a window. However, I do recognize that this is a very subjective opinion and most people probably don't mind it, I just think that it's cheap.
To conclude, I got very critical towards the end, but I genuinely believe Dark Souls 3 is an excellent game and a great conclusion to the series regardless. It's only that after 500 hours of play across the entire series these small grievances start to accumulate, but I would definitely recommend Dark Souls 3 and I'm probably gonna play it again in the future sometime.