Dark Souls III (2016)

Dark Souls III is incredible to me, it's not as good, polished or fluid as Elden Ring. But it has so much style and atmosphere. Really happy to have just played through it for the second time, with a great friend of mine. We also finished the Ringed City DLC.

Last boss of the main game was quite underwhelming, me and my buddy may have been overpowered (SL 110). During our last session we spent quite some time trying to kill that optional black dragon boss from Ringed City (Darkeater Midir). We defeated him in my game - only thing left for us to do in DS3 is defeat that dragon in my friend's game. That fight felt a lot harder than fighting "Soul of Cinder".

Either way, what an experience.

1. Amazing looking environments, gameplay makes you want to persist just to see the next level
2. Boss designs are really cool and epic
3. Needed more cutscenes and lore
4. I don't know ANY backstory about my character or the bosses I kill
5. Final ending (s) are so short what the hell!! Come on the voice acting is actually good let's see a cinematic cutscene
6. Yes I'm not ashamed I used a mod on nexusmods which made it easier for me but at least it was more enjoyable and I STILL died hundreds of times LOL

A very addictive game. Wish there were more cutscenes and story but the series isn't about that. Plus it got repetitive always attacking while I'm literally underneath the boss and can't see them. Sometimes the camera isn't your friend.

What an incredible journey! 9.0/10

Finally!…..

I’ve been stuck on the 2-Princess Boss for about 3 months now. I’ve beaten DS1, DS2, Bloodborne + all DLC, but there was something about this boss that just got me, to the extent where I was prepared to throw in the towel and call it quits (I got to the stage where I even didn’t want to switch on my PS4). I rarely if ever summon NPCs for boss fights, but I didn’t even have the option here as I somehow hadn’t completed the relevant quest line.

I finally resorted to a real player summons, something I have never done before in any Fromsoft game. The first time the summon died in a about 2 seconds (thank you). A second summon was more successful, and though they died in phase 2, I managed to finish things off solo (praise the sun, my dead summon hero).

Easily the hardest, and I can honestly say most annoying boss I’ve come across. Ever. Can’t say I feel any grand sense of achievement, just relief.

Even with Elden Ring close on the horizon, modders continue to do neat stuff with Dark Souls 3! The latest update for the Blades of Ashina mod came out this week and includes a bunch of Sekiro weapons and sidearms, plus a new boss weapon from the Soul of Cinder which can transform between 5 weapon types just like she can in her fight. Can't wait to try it out!

Ugh... As a disclaimer, I got up to the Dancer, killed it and then called it quits, so these are my points up to this point.

The good things:

• The game's atmosphere is amazing and it is definitely what brought me back to the game for a few second chances. Having played DS 1 and Sekiro and watched the entirety of a Bloodborne playthrough, I have to say that I was genuinely surprised to find out this one to be the best-looking game for me among the series. The environment, the character design, the attention to detail, the voice acting, all tied so well together for me that I found myself looking at the castles in the distance or at the tiny details in a character's armor for minutes on end;

• You can upgrade a favorite weapon of yours and using it, complete the game with the playstyle you want;

• I actually enjoyed the boss battles, my main issue was getting to them;

• The multiple elevation levels and secrets hidden in small rooms would've provided an interesting level design, ...

The bad things:

• ...If it didn't seem like the bonfires' placement was decided by a three-year-old who dropped a few of its crayons on the game map. It seems absolutely ridiculous. The first part of the issue is getting to one - there are next to no visual clues that indicate that you are moving even remotely in the direction of the next bonfire (whilst holding your precious souls and being afraid that the next shi... thing in the game may kill you, but more on that later). I'm betting that a lot of first-timers to the game like me had to watch videos just to find out where a bonfire is and whether they have missed one or not (probably). When a lot of your players have to get to watching videos to find out an integral part of your game... well, you can call it a 'part of the exploration charm' of the game, I call it a level design failure.

• The second part of the bonfire issue is that they are usually miles away from the next boss, forcing you to slow grind a section of the game filled with shi... things that can kill you for a multitude of reasons, including bad camera movement, random attacks, getting stuck or whatever. Either that or you can sprint through that section, memorizing when to roll, dash and perform a triple axel jump. In both cases, it is an unneeded grind just to get to the boss. Which leaves you with little patience to actually start fighting them, adapting to them, and learning their attacks. As I said, I don't have an issue with the bosses as they are.

• A complete lack of tutorials on essential game mechanics - what do attributes mean and their soft caps, how to parry and backstab, what is poise, what can you use souls for. I've played a lot of RPGs and I thought I figured some of these out quickly... and it turned out I missed a lot of small but important details. As with the bonfires, I hate having to watch a 10+ minute third-party video to understand how a game works;

• The whole 'souls' system in this variant seems terrible for me. You die and lose your hard-earned grind... until you go to the same place you died, with the disadvantage of actually losing precious seconds of going to the exact location and reclaiming your souls, possibly dying again. The game crashes and you lose your hard-earned grind. The camera shakes and you die and you lose your hard-earned grind. You get pissed off at all of this, quit the game and lose your hard-earned grind;

• The camera and enemy locking are terrible at times;

• The attribute system looks complex but at the same time, I did not find it to provide a lot of customization and class-tailoring options.

Finally caved in, for better or worse, and started my DS3 journey. Blimey! Is this a cracking game! I haven't been immersed in anything this epic since Bloodborne.

Saying that, it does feel very "Bloodborne", particularly the environments. The first hour or so reminds me quite a bit of Yarnham / Cathedral Ward rooftops and the Undead Settlement I swear could be Hemwich Charnel Lane. The combat feels much quicker and tighter compared to DS1 and DS2. It's also very easy to get into if you're familiar with the Souls style of play, and although punishing, it's not unfairly difficult. To me it looks absolutely stunning, and I'm playing it on a bog standard PS4.

....well there goes a significant chunk of my adult life (but boy, am I having fun!).