Dark Souls III

I feel like Dark Souls 3 was at its best when it wasn't clinging onto past glory.

Spoilers:

The final boss is probably the best example of what I'm talking about. Dark Souls 1 had you fight a tragic, burnt out old husk of a God who's been bigged up since the game's introduction. It was a poignant, powerful moment to face Gwyn, and it's one of the reasons that Dark Souls 1 is one of my favourite games.

Walk through the kiln again, it's higher res this time. Instead of having the balls to try something different, and to try again to make an encounter as brilliant and memorable as Gwyn as its final boss, in more content to give you it again, pointing inwards and backwards at how great that time you fought Gwyn was. However, the Soul of Cinder lacks personality of Gwyn, instead being an, ironically, soulless impersonation of a far better boss. The Soul of Cinder's boss music is revealed to be a lightly orchestrated version of the melancholy piano track that really made the Gwyn fight hit home for me, but with none of what actually made it hit home for me. Soul of Cinder, however, at least tries to do something different, with the boss's first phase going through some generic starting class's movesets, shifting between the sword of a warrior to the staff or a mage or the flips and fire of a falchion weilding pyromancer. And the more forms it takes to try and capture a past player character, the farther it gets from doing so.

Oh and when you're done, will you link the fire or walk away? Because if you plan on letting the fire fade I hope you did all the silly requisites that allow you to do so where in dark souls one you just walked away from the bonfire.

Don't get me wrong, Dark Souls 3 is enjoyable. The combat feels pretty good, even if r1 mashing with the fastest weapon did manage to seep in from Bloodborne, a game where it belonged, alongside a generally quickened pace of gameplay due to faster, cheaper rolling at higher equipment loads. Levels are well designed, and there's very few bullshit unavoidable deaths despite the atmosphere being tense as ever; mobs are tougher than ever. Perhaps the best moments, though, were the ones that felt the most fresh to me. I fell in love with the Pilgrim Butterflies that fly over Lothric castle late in the game. They left a taste of potential greatness in my mouth that made me wonder what kind've game we could've gotten if Dark Souls 3 didn't have to be Dark Souls 3.

But instead we see our old friends again, Andre greets us at, yes, firelink shrine. We find Ornstein's armour again, Smough's stuff, too, Gwyndolin hangs out of Aldritch's mouth regardless of what you did in Dark Souls 1. Here's a clone of onionbro because we know you guys loved him. Patches I can forgive, but still. One of the few enjoyable experiences I had with a recurring character was the expansion of the crestfallen warrior into a more fleshed out character. Dubious lore questions raised by this Dark Souls 1 fanservice aside, it just feels too easy, cheap and unfiulfilling.

I also need to say that for every toughened mob in the game there's a dissapointing boss, either for its sheer gimmicky nature or its easiness removing the tension and atmosphere of the encounter. Fighting against Vordt of the Boreal Valley and taking a grand total of one hit due to parking in his crotch area had me from tense and engaged to bored and dissapointed in record speeds. The dude seriously might not as well be in the game. He's got great design, but it's wasted. You can't feel it if he doesn't pound it into you with that mace of his. I don't mind easy bosses per se. I think the difficult of the Souls series is important in creating its atmosphere, but that doesn't mean every bossfight needs to be the hardest most gruelling experience yet. But Vordt and a couple of others that are clearly intended to be action packed one on one combat are just end up so flacid due to their easiness.

Meanwhile, stand idly by and wait for one of the gimmick bosses to expose its weak spots. One of the reasons I fell in love with Dark Souls one was that very few of the boss battles were the conventional 'wait for the attack that exposes his big red kick me sign' affairs. For the most part you were free to attack and do damage when you saw fit based on whether you thought you could get away with it. Fast forward to Dark Souls III and you're waiting for Egg Tree to expose his last egg sack and Wolonir to drag his magical bracelets of boss killing out of his fog all whilst avoiding absaloutely fuck all else. Just standing there without so much as a shield up. Yhorm, Giant King (and smallest giant in the game?) needs to be killed with this special weapon that you find in his boss room. No, no, don't just attack him with it, you need to use the weapon art. No, you have to charge it up fully, in case you didn't know that you needed to charge it. And then you need to use an l2 attack, not just a regular attack. And as soon as you figure out that riveting puzzle, yhorm is trivialised.

I read back all my ranting and complaining but I had a good amount of fun with the game. It's not like Dark Souls 2 where I disliked the thing. I liked Dark Souls III. It's a good game. It's just not great, and due to its unfortunate nature of being a game in a series which had previously approached perfection its flaws stand out all the more to me.

How do we break the cycle, Miyazaki?? Let the flame fade.

Probably gonna delete this review soon lol

Should've been amazing but it's just too tedious. Do you know how many stair knights I killed up in the skies of this world? Many many many. And that boss, FFFFFFF that boss.

Another Souls game that doesn't live up or introduce anything new.

Soooooooo many knights to beat Aldrich. Don't get me started on F--ing Dancer my God, leave me alone.

Good. Bye. F DSIII and FromSoft for Dancer.

(It's a good game but seriously F you FromSoft, I'm not an eighth-level comic book store owner, leave me alone and stop r@ping my soul, JC!

Sooooooo many knights like you don't even understand, SO MANY! Aldrich is impossible! Really needed to tone those fights down, son.

Nameless King...oh My GOD! You have to be a triorigami master to defeat that guy! Can't even properly tank him! You have to PERFECTLY tank him AND borrow the powers of the origami master. It's f-ed up!

You know what? People say this is good and all but F you! I ain't got time for this, sometimes a combat system is simply turned up too high, I can't be dodging every little thing. Really gotta' tone it down.

My introduction to Soul-like was Elden Ring which I fell in love with. But going back to play Dark Souls 1 and 3... I may actually prefer these more streamlined games. The exploration is more immediately rewarding and the combat is just so fun. Trying to get from bonfire to bonfire is a blast.

(i'm not fucking around with rating this, AoA and TRC all separately so just treat this as a review of all 3). i literally just finished my second ever playthrough of this about 10 minutes ago. if dark souls is a flawed masterpiece, dark souls III is an even more flawed feast.

i feel like this game's flaws stick out a lot more than dark souls' for some reason, i feel like it might be because it is almost the reverse of that game in the sense that the first half of DS3 is a bit weaker than the last, whereas in DS1 it's the latter half that's weaker. i wanted to start out by listing some of the (very commonly discussed) flaws with DS3.

firstly, the lacklustre and honestly poorly designed areas (catacombs of carthus, farron keep, road of sacrifices, smouldering lake, irithyll dungeon, and the painted world even though that's arguably in the last half of the game). some of these are downright heinous and some of the enemies here (jailers, ghrus, corvian knights) are genuinely irredeemable for me. I could sit here and pick them apart all day but i won't, they're just irritating and not satisfying to brawl with. these areas feel like they lack variety too, with most of them being underground or just bland and dark, without much of an interesting skybox or colour palette. don't get me wrong, they're still miles better than most areas in DS2 and maintain the same philosophy of interconnectivity as DS1 even if they don't reach the same peaks. but these parts of the game can sometimes feel like a slog.

secondly, people talk about just spamming R1/RB to beat the game, and while i don't agree with this at all, i do think a lot of the base enemies are can be pushovers and don't always encourage you to mix up tactics or try new things.

finally, i can't really think of anything else i feel like my first point was really multiple points but anyway. oh yeah the fact that the game is basically a straight line. sure there are branching paths and it's not super super linear but the reliance on travelling between bonfires is upsetting for a dark souls 1 fanatic like me (even though i've surrendered to the fact they'll likely never design a world as impressively interconnected as DS1 again). BUT having said that they did manage to capture the same environmental points of reference throughout the world which makes this game not only feel huge, but provides some absolutely breathtaking views and reminds you of how far you've come.

now that's out the way, oh my god DS3 is like the perfect celebration of the souls series and fromsoft's recent output in general. while it doesn't quite reach elden ring levels of variety, at the time it was a smorgasbord of enemies, armour, weapons, spells, bosses and everything rolled into one. it almost feels as though there are too many items to discover and it's damn near overwhelming, it makes me feel like i could play this game 100 times and still not exhaust the weapon variety and options. this leads to a level of expression i feel was never before seen in the souls series. DS1 was quite restrictive, DS2 had a variety of weapons but handled like shit, whereas DS2 feels like it throws a new weapon at you every 5 minutes. and while i haven't used all of them, all of the ones i have used all felt incredibly balanced and equally interesting. DS3 was also the first game in the series to introduce the weapon skills/arts thing (also in elden ring) and it adds an additional layer of complexity to the combat. it just feels almost like a sandbox with it's variety and perfectly tows the line between goofy over the top weapons and maintaining the subtle dark souls allure of not giving you all of the freedom in the world (and the feeling of being able to wield your favourite boss' weapon is incredible).

i think by far my favourite dark souls homage DS3 pays to the series as a whole is its story and atmosphere. while DS1 (what a surprise) still remains the undisputed king for me of goat atmosphere, DS3 captures a darkness and melancholy that I feel DS1 was only able to achieve through loneliness and emptiness. every you go in DS3 you are reminded that you're simply a tenant in this sick and dying world, and no one around you is happy to be in it. i could go on and on about the incredibly cryptic and intricate story but at the crux of it is a super well crafted metaphor for the series as a whole. I love miyazaki's hard hitting approach to imbuing this entire game with almost a disdain for the player and the fans making this series as big as it is. but rather than trolling us further he uses the DS3 setting and story to teach us a lesson and send this beloved series off with nary a flicker. and the way the writing is able to inject seemingly every story, every boss, every area with this same feeling of pathetic decay is nothing short of mindblowing.

and speaking of bosses, do i even need to say what the true best part of this game is? DS3 is home to some of the best video game bosses in all of gaming. the presentation, music and lore of damn near every boss here is just phenomenal and, in my opinion, leagues above practically every other souls game i've played so far. the main lords of cinder are obviously steeped in melancholy and there any joy you find from felling them is short lived as you are reminded that you are running a fools errand, murdering others who came before you for realising the futility of linking the flame to mindlessly continue the age of fire, most of which becoming a fate much worse than death. the presentation is the stand out here too, with incredible arenas, satisfying movesets and one of the best original soundtracks in any video game ever, i didn't want most of these fights to ever be over. pontiff sulyvahn, abyss watchers, vordt, sister freide, twin princes, soul of cinder, nameless king, gael, just to name a few. while i love soul of cinder being the true final boss in the base game, the twin princes are my favourite. they embody everything great about the game as a whole and culminate in this heartwrenching battle. to think that lothric is merely a teenager and was forced to become a lord of cinder just because of the cycle of the age of fire, deciding against his fate and locking himself at the highest point of lordran employing his brother to protect him, barely able to fight himself. it's so incredibly tragic and also so satisfying to fight them, with some of the best music in the game to boot. "Rise, if you would. For that is our curse."

i won't touch too much on the other bosses but i have to give freide and gael their flowers. for what is one of the worst areas in the game, friede raises the painted world of ariandel to something much more. the story of her and her father is again, so heartwrenching, and she is so damn fun to fight. the arena is dynamic and cool as fuck and the fake out before the final phase never fails to get me. when she rises up drenched in a cloud of black and white i get goosebumps everytime.
and gael is the best bossfight in all of gaming. not too difficult and not too easy, unbelievable presentation in the coolest arena in the entire game, it's a dance to the death and i wish it never ended.

DS3 is incredibly flawed and i'll never pretend it isn't. but my god if it isn't the best send off to the souls series we could ever have asked for. endlessly hopeless yet mostly a joy to play and experience, it's one for the ages and i can't wait to play it again and again.

I have completed Dark Souls 1-3 in about six months, managing to conquer all the games. Undoubtedly, the best of the series is Dark Souls 3.

Dark Souls 3 takes the strengths of Dark Souls 2 and discards its weaknesses effectively. Annoying mechanics from Dark Souls 2, such as Hollowing (which I somewhat enjoyed), and the surplus of purposeless bosses have been rectified in Dark Souls 3. Features like the Firelink Shrine as a central hub, akin to Majula, and the ability for instant warping, which were great aspects of Dark Souls 2, have been retained. With 19 challenging bosses, most of them are formidable, unlike the forgettable and trivial nature of some of Dark Souls 2's 55 bosses, of which I only remember around 10.

This installment feels more like a sequel to Dark Souls 1 than to 2, as Dark Souls 2 seemed disconnected in its lineage. The narrative of Dark Souls 2 still appeals to me more than that of Dark Souls 3.

Dark Souls 3 offers substantial value, keeping a diverse weapon selection, excellent enemies, memorable bosses, and captivating locales. The game permits a wide range of character builds, adding to the variety of gameplay options.

While the game's story is more accessible than that of Dark Souls 1, it retains its enigmatic nature. However, one can grasp the overall direction of the journey.

Among the primary game's challenges, the Dancer of the Boreal Valley stands out as the most formidable. It took me approximately two and a half hours to overcome her, though the battle itself was incredibly satisfying. Each boss encounter is enjoyable, but personally, the Abyss Watchers stood out as the most captivating. I was so taken with them that I wore their armor for a significant portion of the game.

The DLCs were commendable, although at times, they seemed excessively challenging. The Painted World of Ariandel, featuring two bosses (one optional), compensates with its intricate areas and the impressive concluding boss. The Dreg Heap, in my opinion, proved excessively challenging in parts. The daunting staircase with three imposing enemies to evade while three more appear at the top felt unbalanced and frustrating. Additionally, the flying angels posed a considerable annoyance, forcing a precarious escape until you locate their destructible counterparts. Such elements made the DLC exasperating and detracted from the enjoyment. However, encounters with characters like Patches and the exceptional bosses in this DLC made the experience worthwhile. In a manner reminiscent of Dark Souls 1's DLC, the finest boss battles are found here. Slave Knight Gael, although a demanding and extended fight, remains fair and uniquely rewarding. The fault for each death lay squarely with me, making the final showdown remarkably satisfying.

In conclusion, Dark Souls 3 is an exceptional game, arguably the pinnacle of the Dark Souls series. The confrontations against Soul of Cinder and Slave Knight Gael are exceptionally well-crafted. For me, it's undoubtedly a close-to-perfect experience. With such quality, I find it hard to envision the necessity of a Dark Souls 4.

After 3 years of getting my ass kicked my dark souls 3 journey ends. From fighting a tree with testicles to fighting a nameless king, this game will bully you with impressive boss fights and enemy AI. You will improve with each death or probably cry in the corner but practice makes perfect in a rinse and repeat method of identifying various ways to approach every situation. When you get the chance claim the throne as the fire fades in your hands, you god-damned ashen one. (9/10)