Dark Souls III is going to age really well in terms of broader cultural perception because, for one, a lot of the early criticisms bemoaning the reuse of proper nouns and whatnot read like advertisements now, given the explicit text of the game and some of the most heavy handed visual metaphors of all time. Premature scrambles to rob things with the Bandai Namco logo of their authorial intention (understandable) is less interesting and less important to me though than the strangely under-discussed topic of the game’s… design. I’ll put Cathedral of the Deep against literally any level design ever. This is the only video game ever made where you get to fight Sister Friede, Twin Princes, Dancer, Nameless King, etc. Granted, a big part of the reason bespoke design elements go unexplored in reviews is their pure density. So many of these levels and bosses would take so long to break down, and It's not like I’m contributing here either, I just listed some examples I liked. That being said, it can’t be overstated that these games, as games, are really good! Uniquely good, I think. Good in a way that should generate more trust-capital in terms of From’s competence as artists and designers more generally.
This all being said, there are still plenty of reasons to hate DS3, many of which I am sympathetic to. I’m not going to list them out (a lot of them have to do with color and lighting), but I’ll at least mention that I think modern From games are pretty clearly less mysterious and “interesting” than when Demon’s Souls was a game you maybe heard about, or the first time you stumbled into The Great Hollow. But man, they hit the transition to “more linear, more big, more fast” with the gas pedal all the way down to the fucking floor. Dark Souls III is genuinely one of the most frenetic and energized games I’ve ever played, and yet still staggeringly tight and well crafted. Bloodborne and Dark Souls III mark the beginning of a stretch of Three-Dimensional Action Role Playing Game Design so ahead of what else is out there that I’m starting to wonder just how long it will be until anything else scratches that itch. I personally didn’t find Lies of P, Nioh, or any of the other games I’ve played in this loosely defined genre nearly as promising in this regard as others have, but time will tell. Or give me recs! I’d be happy to be wrong.
This all being said, there are still plenty of reasons to hate DS3, many of which I am sympathetic to. I’m not going to list them out (a lot of them have to do with color and lighting), but I’ll at least mention that I think modern From games are pretty clearly less mysterious and “interesting” than when Demon’s Souls was a game you maybe heard about, or the first time you stumbled into The Great Hollow. But man, they hit the transition to “more linear, more big, more fast” with the gas pedal all the way down to the fucking floor. Dark Souls III is genuinely one of the most frenetic and energized games I’ve ever played, and yet still staggeringly tight and well crafted. Bloodborne and Dark Souls III mark the beginning of a stretch of Three-Dimensional Action Role Playing Game Design so ahead of what else is out there that I’m starting to wonder just how long it will be until anything else scratches that itch. I personally didn’t find Lies of P, Nioh, or any of the other games I’ve played in this loosely defined genre nearly as promising in this regard as others have, but time will tell. Or give me recs! I’d be happy to be wrong.