It's hysterical that this game has been canonized as a return to form / 'true sequel' to the original Dark Souls since it's so clearly Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne stacked on top of each other in a DS1-shaped trench coat. Even more hysterical, it works!
After playing so many of From's Soulslikes (we need a new word for these) in such short proximity, I've devised an internal list of 'things I care about when it comes to these games.' In ascending order of importance; Story, Visuals, Level Design, Combat System and Boss Fights. Keen-eyed readers will notice these are extremely vague categories containing millions of sub-elements, unignorable amounts of overlap and important factors unaccounted for, contributing to a poor summary overall. So what? What are you a cop?
DS3's story is intensely weird and can be read from so many directions for what is, on its surface, the least obfuscated Miyazaki had written to this point. DS2's narrative was a direct commentary on the inevitable failure to live up to its predecessor, presenting a marred hollow imitation of the first game's world. 3 is seemingly a commentary on the decision to give the fans exactly what they want. It's the exact narrative of the first two games again, just making the implicit themes of 2 direct. Everything has happened before, not now in a spiritual sense, but in a literal one. The re-interpretation of various areas is the most prevalent example, and the re-emergence of that one (you know the one) leitmotif in the final boss is the most obvious. It's tempting to dismiss this as cravenly self-referential, and maybe it is, but it's oddly compelling nonetheless. I kind of like that this is an expository midquel, showing a world evolved from DS1's but just recognisable enough that we can tell it must take place somewhere before 2's far-flung imitation. It deepens the fanservice-y 'OMG it's literally Anor Londo' moments to know they don't matter. The cycle will continue, and this iconography will be gone far before it ends (I think Ringed City hammers this home but I'll get to that another day). I don't know, that's just how I took it, the narratives have never been the draw to these games for me. I just like that Miyazaki decided that his grand self-commentary on the one story he tells over and over again would also be a more accessible version of that story.
FromSoftware makes gorgeous video games, and I'd be hard-pressed to call this an exception. Some areas here are high watermarks for the whole of 2010s gaming. I'd probably first point to Irithyll of the Boreal Valley or Archdragon Peak as the most stunning examples of such (and the DLC hits even higher highs). I've only two real problems, both showing the difficulty of discussing this game in 2024. One is the colour grading. I don't know whose idea it was to slap the Bloodborne colour correction filter onto this thing, but they should be sacked. The washed-out grey aesthetic here is a major bummer for far too many areas of this game, and it renders certain sections visual mush. Compare Farron Keep to ER's Caelid, it's not even close. If you're going to drop me in a poison swamp for an hour (by all means do, I seem to enjoy it), I'd prefer it didn't look like a Russo Brothers film. I can see arguments for the value of the oppressive atmosphere it provides (and I agree with them regarding Bloodborne) but here the trade-off is not worth it. This contributes heavily to Issue Two: every game they've made since looks even better. Sekiro and Elden Ring embrace much brighter colour palettes that make everything pop so much more, and Armored Core 6 wipes its robot ass with everything else the studio has ever made. I'm a sucker for picturesque sights, and this game has a damn nice few, but not one moment of it made my jaw drop the way it did the first time I dropped into Limgrave or Fountainhead Palace in Sekiro. In short, my only struggle with this game's aesthetic is that I know they can do much better (or at the very least they've trended in a direction I far prefer). Take a shot every time I unfavourably compare this game to a game that wasn't out when it was released. You'll die! I just cannot help but feel they've improved in certain areas since. Tis my cross to bear.
I think the number one problem with this game for most DS1 die-hards is, for all its posturing to fans of the first game, the much-loved interconnectivity from said game is non-existent. I get it, I do, it's one of my favourite things about that game as well. But for what we have here, a more segmented series of 'levels' with a lot of linear offshoots to explore that wrap around within themselves, I like it a lot. In a way, it's that interconnectivity done on a much smaller scale. Sure, it's only slightly more involved than the linearity of 2, but I liked 2's levels as well! I'm not going to get on my linear-level high horse yet again, much as I love to, but I'm always ready to bat for well-constructed straightforwardness and that's what I see here. I will concede it does occasionally feel like the levels are just trying to lose you in their many dead ends. For example, I'd love to see someone unfamiliar with these games try to navigate the High Wall of Lothric. The amount of little offshoots would have freaked me out if this were my first one. But at the end of the day, I thoroughly enjoy traversing these levels, and I like that I'm already seeing sparks of what would become the level design philosophy of Sekiro. Few games are as fun to move through as that one, and there are high points here not far behind, even if they are slightly over-reliant on the fast travel system to work. A joy in this capacity, if not as mind-blowing as other instalments.
The combat system is probably the most difficult part to judge fairly in 2024. At release, this was the best any FromSoft game controlled. They reverted most of what I didn't like about the BloodBorne system (the vials, the dash instead of the roll, rally [I know I'm just not a fan, love you BB-heads]) while retaining the faster pace and smoother movement. Sure, maybe the game doesn't work hard enough to stop you from just R1-ing everything to oblivion but hey, that's what I was doing anyway! On the whole, unilaterally a good thing. The only problem is, they've gotten even better since (take a shot)! Putting aside AC6 (just not a reasonable comparison) and Sekiro (not a Soulslike but far more gratifying for me), Elden Ring, for all its flaws, basically nabs this game's combat and one-ups it on every front. In the ways 3's is tighter, smoother and faster than 2, ER's is to 3, while more closely resembling it. So, a great feeling system, but one we now have a direct improvement on. This puts DS3 in a weird place. The other games, in their slow and janky glory, are very distinct in combat, ultimately making 3's feel less special. Perhaps I'd leverage this complaint at ER too, for not doing enough to make its combat distinct and ultimately making its predecessor feel a little redundant. This is probably just a me thing. Despite all the needless philosophising, DS3's combat feels great. But if you've played Elden Ring you might have a nagging feeling it's a straight downgrade.
Which is more than made up for in the boss fights! I've learnt to love the jagged difficulty spikes of this series, but a part of me has wanted to see how one of these would play with a more natural difficulty curve. I now have my answer, incredibly well! It makes Elden Ring's unreasonable peaks all the more infuriating. 3 is an act of constant rising tension, each boss requiring slightly more work, memorisation and execution to get past. Early-game bosses are delightful and unique encounters, late-game bosses like Twin Princes or Nameless King are electrifying (har har) spectacles that will stretch the abilities you have had time to develop throughout the game. Better yet, not one arbitrary instakill grab in sight! I get the sense the back end of this game (and the final DLC) informed a lot of Elden Ring's boss design, but they got the wrong idea. The fun of Nameless King isn't just his cool delays and roll catches that test your execution, the fun of it is him doing that after a game's worth of slow burn difficulty increases readying you for it. Nameless King is tough, he does fuck with your muscle memory, but he is a culmination of an entire game's worth of tough, and you'll be ready for him by the time you find him. That's the best kind of difficulty to me, and as much fun as I had facing something like Margit, his moveset isn't as gratifying an act of subversion if the game hasn't had a chance to build something to subvert yet. Enough rambling, the base game of DS3 has an exceptional sense of rising action in its boss design, climaxing expertly with Nameless King, and borrowing the classic Dark Souls trick of poetically underwhelming you with the final boss. Too easy, but in a way that feels right. These guys know how to end a game.
On a final note, it's awesome that a game so deeply weird, completely singular and narratively unapproachable to newcomers (at least on any below-the-surface level) can read as something of a crowd-pleasing swing at fan service. The bar really is that high. Suffering from success and all that.
After playing so many of From's Soulslikes (we need a new word for these) in such short proximity, I've devised an internal list of 'things I care about when it comes to these games.' In ascending order of importance; Story, Visuals, Level Design, Combat System and Boss Fights. Keen-eyed readers will notice these are extremely vague categories containing millions of sub-elements, unignorable amounts of overlap and important factors unaccounted for, contributing to a poor summary overall. So what? What are you a cop?
DS3's story is intensely weird and can be read from so many directions for what is, on its surface, the least obfuscated Miyazaki had written to this point. DS2's narrative was a direct commentary on the inevitable failure to live up to its predecessor, presenting a marred hollow imitation of the first game's world. 3 is seemingly a commentary on the decision to give the fans exactly what they want. It's the exact narrative of the first two games again, just making the implicit themes of 2 direct. Everything has happened before, not now in a spiritual sense, but in a literal one. The re-interpretation of various areas is the most prevalent example, and the re-emergence of that one (you know the one) leitmotif in the final boss is the most obvious. It's tempting to dismiss this as cravenly self-referential, and maybe it is, but it's oddly compelling nonetheless. I kind of like that this is an expository midquel, showing a world evolved from DS1's but just recognisable enough that we can tell it must take place somewhere before 2's far-flung imitation. It deepens the fanservice-y 'OMG it's literally Anor Londo' moments to know they don't matter. The cycle will continue, and this iconography will be gone far before it ends (I think Ringed City hammers this home but I'll get to that another day). I don't know, that's just how I took it, the narratives have never been the draw to these games for me. I just like that Miyazaki decided that his grand self-commentary on the one story he tells over and over again would also be a more accessible version of that story.
FromSoftware makes gorgeous video games, and I'd be hard-pressed to call this an exception. Some areas here are high watermarks for the whole of 2010s gaming. I'd probably first point to Irithyll of the Boreal Valley or Archdragon Peak as the most stunning examples of such (and the DLC hits even higher highs). I've only two real problems, both showing the difficulty of discussing this game in 2024. One is the colour grading. I don't know whose idea it was to slap the Bloodborne colour correction filter onto this thing, but they should be sacked. The washed-out grey aesthetic here is a major bummer for far too many areas of this game, and it renders certain sections visual mush. Compare Farron Keep to ER's Caelid, it's not even close. If you're going to drop me in a poison swamp for an hour (by all means do, I seem to enjoy it), I'd prefer it didn't look like a Russo Brothers film. I can see arguments for the value of the oppressive atmosphere it provides (and I agree with them regarding Bloodborne) but here the trade-off is not worth it. This contributes heavily to Issue Two: every game they've made since looks even better. Sekiro and Elden Ring embrace much brighter colour palettes that make everything pop so much more, and Armored Core 6 wipes its robot ass with everything else the studio has ever made. I'm a sucker for picturesque sights, and this game has a damn nice few, but not one moment of it made my jaw drop the way it did the first time I dropped into Limgrave or Fountainhead Palace in Sekiro. In short, my only struggle with this game's aesthetic is that I know they can do much better (or at the very least they've trended in a direction I far prefer). Take a shot every time I unfavourably compare this game to a game that wasn't out when it was released. You'll die! I just cannot help but feel they've improved in certain areas since. Tis my cross to bear.
I think the number one problem with this game for most DS1 die-hards is, for all its posturing to fans of the first game, the much-loved interconnectivity from said game is non-existent. I get it, I do, it's one of my favourite things about that game as well. But for what we have here, a more segmented series of 'levels' with a lot of linear offshoots to explore that wrap around within themselves, I like it a lot. In a way, it's that interconnectivity done on a much smaller scale. Sure, it's only slightly more involved than the linearity of 2, but I liked 2's levels as well! I'm not going to get on my linear-level high horse yet again, much as I love to, but I'm always ready to bat for well-constructed straightforwardness and that's what I see here. I will concede it does occasionally feel like the levels are just trying to lose you in their many dead ends. For example, I'd love to see someone unfamiliar with these games try to navigate the High Wall of Lothric. The amount of little offshoots would have freaked me out if this were my first one. But at the end of the day, I thoroughly enjoy traversing these levels, and I like that I'm already seeing sparks of what would become the level design philosophy of Sekiro. Few games are as fun to move through as that one, and there are high points here not far behind, even if they are slightly over-reliant on the fast travel system to work. A joy in this capacity, if not as mind-blowing as other instalments.
The combat system is probably the most difficult part to judge fairly in 2024. At release, this was the best any FromSoft game controlled. They reverted most of what I didn't like about the BloodBorne system (the vials, the dash instead of the roll, rally [I know I'm just not a fan, love you BB-heads]) while retaining the faster pace and smoother movement. Sure, maybe the game doesn't work hard enough to stop you from just R1-ing everything to oblivion but hey, that's what I was doing anyway! On the whole, unilaterally a good thing. The only problem is, they've gotten even better since (take a shot)! Putting aside AC6 (just not a reasonable comparison) and Sekiro (not a Soulslike but far more gratifying for me), Elden Ring, for all its flaws, basically nabs this game's combat and one-ups it on every front. In the ways 3's is tighter, smoother and faster than 2, ER's is to 3, while more closely resembling it. So, a great feeling system, but one we now have a direct improvement on. This puts DS3 in a weird place. The other games, in their slow and janky glory, are very distinct in combat, ultimately making 3's feel less special. Perhaps I'd leverage this complaint at ER too, for not doing enough to make its combat distinct and ultimately making its predecessor feel a little redundant. This is probably just a me thing. Despite all the needless philosophising, DS3's combat feels great. But if you've played Elden Ring you might have a nagging feeling it's a straight downgrade.
Which is more than made up for in the boss fights! I've learnt to love the jagged difficulty spikes of this series, but a part of me has wanted to see how one of these would play with a more natural difficulty curve. I now have my answer, incredibly well! It makes Elden Ring's unreasonable peaks all the more infuriating. 3 is an act of constant rising tension, each boss requiring slightly more work, memorisation and execution to get past. Early-game bosses are delightful and unique encounters, late-game bosses like Twin Princes or Nameless King are electrifying (har har) spectacles that will stretch the abilities you have had time to develop throughout the game. Better yet, not one arbitrary instakill grab in sight! I get the sense the back end of this game (and the final DLC) informed a lot of Elden Ring's boss design, but they got the wrong idea. The fun of Nameless King isn't just his cool delays and roll catches that test your execution, the fun of it is him doing that after a game's worth of slow burn difficulty increases readying you for it. Nameless King is tough, he does fuck with your muscle memory, but he is a culmination of an entire game's worth of tough, and you'll be ready for him by the time you find him. That's the best kind of difficulty to me, and as much fun as I had facing something like Margit, his moveset isn't as gratifying an act of subversion if the game hasn't had a chance to build something to subvert yet. Enough rambling, the base game of DS3 has an exceptional sense of rising action in its boss design, climaxing expertly with Nameless King, and borrowing the classic Dark Souls trick of poetically underwhelming you with the final boss. Too easy, but in a way that feels right. These guys know how to end a game.
On a final note, it's awesome that a game so deeply weird, completely singular and narratively unapproachable to newcomers (at least on any below-the-surface level) can read as something of a crowd-pleasing swing at fan service. The bar really is that high. Suffering from success and all that.