This is the natural gameplay and story convergence you arrive to when you make a second sequel to a game that clearly didn't have a single one planned in the first place. Did it need to exist? Probably not. Am I glad it does? Fucking yes of course

One funny thing about Dark Souls 3 is that it's like a degree removed from just being an action game, and while I understand the hangups anyone would have with that given the nature of the originals that allowed you to adapt your build for a challenge regardless of mid-battle reflexes involved, I don't really care because the death-grip tightness of this combat absolutely deserves praise. My opinions on DS3 are essentially the opposite of how I felt about DS2, in that I think this game's core mechanics are rock-solid and hardly need any tuning (besides Poise which I do think was a shithead idea to modify into its current state), but it's got the lamest areas in the series conceptually. As for the combat, fighting each enemy is a challenge in and of itself due to their more frantic movesets, but the player's added mobility helps out to make most basic encounters fun and the boss fights exhilarating. There are no more curbstomps for padding a la DS2 where the boss feels like a regular elite enemy but with music and a health bar, and even when the odd gimmick fight shows up, the presentation of the whole thing elevates the experience a lot (Wolnir, Yhorm, Deacons). Also the act of just... hitting things in this game feels good as fuck, the sounds are visceral, the blood effects spray around realistically, it really comes off as tearing through decayed flesh and bone with a slab of iron. I know the comparisons to Bloodborne have been made more than enough, but if you're gonna carry something over from that game, the general game feel is a good start. It's not all without fault though; some of the enemy movesets get a little TOO wacky and aggressive where it's bordering on a character action game (something that would continue on into Elden Ring in a much more obnoxious manner) and you don't really have much of an ability to deal with it besides tanking through it or rolling like a maniac - a tactic which is a little too effective in this game at times. Eliminating powerstancing and replacing it with sets of paired weapons instead of keeping the mechanic and improving upon it is... weird, a lot of weapon arts don't feel substantial enough to use where your basic attacks would do the job just fine, and the build balancing is by far the worst in the series. But in the end, these problems are something I can live with in the grand scheme of things since, again, the core gameplay is just that satisfying.

The exploration, however, is not. The areas DS3 takes you to consistently feel... surface-level? I don't quite know how to describe it, but the vibe DS1 and especially DS2 gave off with you descending deeper into the pits of their setting and escalating weirdness of the environments is almost completely gone here. City, cathedral, village, forest, catacomb, swamp, cathedral again, city again, church, library, castle, holy shit slow down I'm gonna faint from the excitement. The only areas in the base game that present some kind of esoteric departure from the norm are Smouldering Lake (if only due to the giant worm and ballista launcher), Profaned Capital with the verticality, all the piled-up treasure and Sin Monstrosities at the bottom - shame it lasts a total of 5 minutes - and Untended Graves, which has the benefit of being a secret area hidden behind another secret area and offers a genuinely unsettling atmosphere and the best bossfight in the game, along with ANOTHER secret leading to a new ending. That's the type of shit I live for with these games and I'm annoyed there wasn't more of it, at least until the Ringed City DLC which comes with an almost fairytale-like depiction of traveling to the (metaphorical and literal) end of the world on foot. I wish the base game could've gradually built up to this on its own, instead of plopping you right into it with the DLC, but I'll take what I can get.

There's a common point of contention with DS3 about "fanservice" and how hard it leans into the first game with its references, occasionally copying characters, bosses, and even whole areas from the original, for not much reason besides a vapid self-congratulation or a clumsy tie-in to DS1's lore. I get where the annoyance comes from, I just don't particularly care about the masturbatory aspect of it as I do about retreading familiar ground in a game that already feels like it's not taking many risks, which I think is the real issue. You're allowed to think the final boss is cool and also corny at the same time, it's fine.

Not sure how to wrap this up. I do think this is a fantastic action RPG I would recommend to anyone, it's just that it could've been so much more if it wasn't trying to be A Sequel To Dark Souls.

THE SOULS SERIES HAS HAD A ROUGH TIME TRANSITIONING INTO DARK SOULS 2, BUT

I really love the atmosphere of this one. There's a kind of prevailing sense of dread and unease through the whole game, even more so than the original, and it's probably less due to the muddy textures and more due to the desolate world design and mournful setting. My favorite part of all these games is coming across areas that feel so forgotten in time and cryptic in their existence that you get the impression of being somewhere you don't belong, and DS2 delivers that in spades. The bleakness and hostility of areas like Shrine of Amana, Undead Crypt and Aldia's Keep really lets you take in how far the secrets of the kingdom are buried, especially after noticing something is clearly off in your trudge through Drangleic Castle. The sense of engaging directly with this world's dark history is palpable, and so rarely pulled off as effectively as in this game, so full credit where it's due.

It's just a shame that this comes with the cost of having to actually play the fucking thing. I don't know what happened here, but besides the neat additions to rolling and sprinting, everything here feels five times floatier than the last game. Combat is like hitting bags of sand with cardboard. Enemy swings track you to Antarctica and back. Your character sometimes decides to swat a fly to their side instead of hitting the boss in front of them. The hitboxes operate beyond human understanding. Running is more akin to ice skating. The level design and enemy placement takes a massive nosedive until the DLC, and even that has its own gems of shit such as the Frigid Outskirts or most of Old Iron King. I don't even have to mention whatever's going on with ADP or Soul Memory, as it's already been mocked wide and loud enough to be common knowledge. Powerstancing is... neat, I never got that much out of it given the investment required, and while I understand that the main point of praise for this game comes from its build variety and by extension the PvP, the latter has always been something I saw more as an extra feature (or surprise challenge in the case of invaders) for my playthroughs instead of an integral part of the experience. I think gauging the quality of these games exclusively on their PvP is kinda fucking moronic

It's interesting seeing how many ideas were taken from this and given a second run with Elden Ring, and while some were definitely refined, others should've probably stayed in DS2 - primarily cramming a boss fight into every nook and cranny of the game at the cost of making only about 10% of them be memorable at all. There's a LOT to like here - quite literally, this being the largest game in the trilogy - but only if you can get over how flimsy it feels to play and dull to look at.

It must be an unimaginably herculean effort to design a world so interconnected and with so many different areas seamlessly woven around the main hub, given that they pulled it off here and then said "let's never do this again". And don't give me that Majula thing cause listen, I like the place, but DS2 feels like it only included a central town out of obligation after the first game.

I'll always have a soft spot for DS1 because its systems all fall into place together so comfortably that a lot of the changes introduced with the later games almost feel excessive. Sure, it's been 11 years so now most of these boss and weapon movesets feel primitive and predictable, but this slow and deliberate clunkiness of everything somehow makes the game... tighter? There are very few extraneous mechanics or items so each swing, cast, block or dodge during combat feels purposeful, and every bit of the game during exploration is hand-crafted to amplify that sense of discovery. There are so many bosses with unique setups to their fights that even when you're getting your ass kicked, it's in a different way from the last time so all of them stay endlessly memorable; and honestly, you could say the same for most of the areas and the obstacles they put in front of you. The whole thing is brimming with personality and at times it makes you feel like a little kid on an adventure or playing around with medieval action figures, in the most sincere way possible.

I don't have much to add that you didn't already hear in every video essay under the sun. The later half is kind of ass, yes, if only by comparison to the first and it does unfortunately drag the game down quite a bit. The lore is good and all that, I particularly like what it does with the vagueness of religion and its different interpretations in-universe, but I never cared too much for this side of the Souls series as I do about the moment-to-moment experience of playing them and absorbing their atmosphere, and DS1 still kicks ass in that regard. Comfort food game.

I can't rate this. It's a magical initial 20 hours, followed by a slow petering out with insane zigzags in quality near the end. It's a gorgeous world and you can find adventure in any direction you go, but the rewards start feeling less and less substantial the further you are, especially when you realize how unbalanced and contrived some of the underlying stat systems are. For everything enjoyable here, there's something annoying or detrimental to the experience. I really want to love it, but there's too many forks in the road for me to remember it as the studio's masterwork (the way most people seem to be treating it).

But enough about Breath of the Wild,