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.