Dark Souls III (2016)

The third and final Dark Souls mainline entry is a masterful conclusion to FromSoftware’s legendary action RPG series. Blending the deliberate, methodical combat of its predecessors with the swifter, more aggressive pacing inspired by Bloodborne. The game’s world is a decaying, interconnected labyrinth of gothic spires, crumbling castles, and eerie swamps, each area brimming with secrets, shortcuts, and deadly foes. Every encounter demands focus, whether it’s a lone hollow knight or a towering boss with multiple, unpredictable phases, rewarding patience, precise timing, and adaptability.

It really feels like they learned a lot when it comes to the pacing and mechanics from the Bloodborne title, and decided to gracefully translate it into a Dark Souls title, and it was done masterfully. This one has the best level design in my opinion, really makes you want to replay it a couple of times just for testing out new builds, since they introduced weapon arts and much much more spells for you to play around. Not to mention the large amount of bosses and unique weapons you can obtain from them, this is truly the best last Dark Souls title we could ever get. I played and replayed this one quite a bit, but I admit that I was never able to beat Midir haha.

The narrative remains deliberately cryptic, told through fragmented dialogue, item descriptions, and environmental storytelling, inviting you to piece together its somber tale of fading fire and cyclical despair. Visually, it’s stunning, with haunting vistas and oppressive atmosphere, complemented by an orchestral score that swells at key moments to heighten both triumph and tragedy. Dark Souls III is challenging and at times punishing, but its sense of accomplishment and mastery is unmatched, making it a fitting and satisfying farewell to the series. A must play for Soulslike fans or if you even slightly liked Dark Souls to any extent.

This game, like many others, is my first soulsborne. This game is probably the least harsh you'll ever play in the souls series outside of Elden Ring and probably the least balanced too..... 2nd only to Elden Ring.

This game is fantastic in introducing you to all the mechanics in a fast manner, rewarding you for taking your time in the tutorial area with a good first boss to start, to give you a hint of what's coming later on. I think the biggest issue with this game is that there is too much save points, you'll save at a campfire, open a door, and boom. Another campfire. Asides from that, the game feels very smooth.

There is obvious areas that you can progress to while still having your own choice in each path. Each rewarding and each offering different challenges, and that's what makes it interesting for me. Each path still provides a different experience and a different endpoint for it with fun questlines available in each path. I'm saying it in a round about way, but easiest way to describe it is one will slow you down via mud, while the other will make you run a marathon while a hail of arrows rains upon you. It's fun.

This would be the most natural way to get into soulsborne series without it being too easy, or too difficult. Elden Ring is too RPG heavy in grinding, Dark Souls 1 is too unforgiving, and Bloodborne isn't available on pc. Each providing with their own strength, but right here is a great start point.

Utterly disappointed. Played all games as PvE (sometimes PvP).

Maybe it's because i played as Sorcerer this time.

Dark Souls 1 was a complete game. I played as a classic Knight. Long swords, spears, shields. I learnt observing the opponent for best attacking options there. Of course it had pros and cons but considering the year it released they all might be understandable. Best game in this series. Completed with the DLC.

Dark Souls 2, i don't understand the hate. Of course it adds nothing to Dark Souls lore. But generally who cares. I do but that's not much of a big deal. This is DS. Journey is more important than the endings. I played as dual sword Swordsman. It was painful at first but later it pays of very well. Never had much fun. My dodging skills really improved after my lazy knight. Butchering the enemy with my katanas, other dual blades i used. Also there is Rapier. Completed the game with all DLCs.

Then is there 3rd. I wanted to try something different this time. Then i saw, after 40 hours of investment, i finally made Sorcerer worth playable at least. Except few bosses, game becomes relatively easy. Because as a sorcerer i realized, all the powerful spells were there late in the game. One shotting normal enemies. Crystal moss, spear were like a Nuke bomb. I resetted my skills in order to do Dex/Int build also. It was more fun than full Int.

Many bosses are so unbalanced. Feels like creators tried so hard to create a "hard boss". I killed all of them, even the optionals. But the only boss i enjoyed is the Nameless King. Ohh, there are summons. I wish i had not called them. They melt bosses like a butter. If you gonna play this game. Don't call summons. They destroy all the fun. I used them in few bosses because i was so bored during game and wanted to finish it quickly to see the ending. Whatever.

And the long, long roads filled with the enemies from the bonfire to the Boss fight. This is just stupid. This doesn't make the game harder. Just a huge waste of time. They knew they did a rushed game so to lenghten the total time, they add all those unnecessary stuff.

Game has astonishing visuals. I loved it. But the areas and the enemies so similar.

Terrible hitbox. Just terrible. I mean DS1 and DS2 was bad. But this game just just terrible when it comes to hitbox. Enemy broken sword has better reach than my spells.

Locking to enemy. As a sorcerer it was the worst side of my gameplay. There is just no balance here either. i can shot some enemies miles away, but also lost lock-on because there is a thin column. And camera goes crazy. YOU DIED.

I saw some people saying that this game is super hard and that's why it's the best. Umm, this game is not hard?

It's like they put all the bad things from the first two game and morphined into the 3rd. Because changes they made brings nothing new or enjoyable.

I played as a dodge-backstep guy so i can't make ant comment about Poise stuff, which i heard they also messed that up.

All +2, +3 items are in NG+ and NG++. Why? Again rushed level designs. Just make finding them harder or hide tough optional bosses. But no. You need to play another 20-30-40 hours to get them. I didn't like that either.

Some guy said real game begins at NG+7. Yeah bro. OK.

Endings are meeh.

You know i'm not a prejudicial type of guy. I avoided Dark Souls many years of my life. I try as many different games as possible. I played Celeste and Hollow Knight before this series. Which were hard too. I generally try to see the good sides when i play a game.

This might be first time i criticize a game so hard because my expectations were so high. Closure game of the legendary series. Tried DLCs too but failed to be patient, bored again. Sadly.

Maybe years later if i find the courage myself i will start with a new character. Because i do care what people say and i see they love this 3rd game most.

Edit: Recently played DLCs too.

And i sincerely think that DLCs topped the main game.

First DLC was meeeh but The Ringed City was really good.

But again adding more stages and huge health bars to the bosses doesn't make them hard or unique. Just makes them more boring.

Gameplay: 4 /5 Story: 3.5 /5 Presentation: 3.5/5 Difficulty: 4/ 5

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

Much better controls which let me feel like when I failed it was actually all my fault and not the game which is a good place to be. Once again a long journey with many tough foes to face who continue to have amazing character design that gets implemented into the way they fight.

whats the best way to make this more enjoyable? I'm not a fan of the difficulty but want to at least 'try' but find a lack of progress isnt really fun/worthwhile when playing games during workweek. (At least with any good ol jrpg i can grind)

I find the ways this one to be hard just off the scale (reaction speed, fumbling keystrokes, convoluted item upgrades/character bits, and wandering into wrong areas.) its too bad because i really do like a lot of things in this game compared to the first two!

Dark Souls 3 - The Ringed City DLC Review / Final Thoughts

Having now completed the final DLC for third and final Souls game, I will admit that I was taken by surprise. This DLC really cemented together the experience and addressed many of the criticisms that I had for the base game. When looking at the whole DS3 experience, including both DLCs, it really is a deep and worthwhile experience.

One of my biggest criticisms of DS3 was the repetitive or same-ness of the areas within the game. You definitely explore a whole bunch of different places but the colour palette stays mostly the same: dark browns, grey and black. Almost all of the areas are crumbling ruins, broken masonry, overgrown crypts etc. The two DLCs definitely address this issue by taking the player to a range of different places that feel very different. The first DLC is a frozen, mountainous place filled with wolves, vikings and weird tree people. The second DLC is just weird and surreal, very apocalyptic as you explore the world in its final days as it collapses in on itself. The Ringed City itself is absolutely gorgeous, filled with bright colours and peculiar insect people: "I Shall Partake."

My other big criticism of DS3 was the boss fights. DS3 has some incredible and memorable boss fights, but many of the bosses use a gimmick for fighting them rather than applying your actual fighting skills. They are "puzzle bosses" where you must discover the weakness or find some environmental element/trigger to kill the boss. These bosses seem difficult, but once you figure out the "secret" you can generally finish them off in under a minute. This is true of at least 3 bosses, arguably more. The DLCs definitely address this problem and they also ramp up the difficulty significantly. After beating DS3 with my lvl1 character I was starting to feel the game was a little bit easy but the second DLC in particular really kicked my ass and put the fear back into me. The final boss for the first DLC is a really incredible set piece, tough, terrifying and beautiful. In the second DLC none of the bosses will let you off easily, and the very final boss is terrifying and tough, he definitely had me on my toes for a couple days at least. In fact I would argue that the DLC offers the best boss fights in the game, without a doubt.

Ultimately, I was surprised by the DLC content. It was really good, and it felt like a nice capstone to the experience. For anyone who has played DS3 but not the DLC content, I would recommend giving it a try, as it's arguably the best part of the game. The apocalyptic setting is cool; it offers a lot of closure to the series. At the end of the world only the toughest and most-nasty creatures are left wandering the wasteland. A very satisfying end to the series.

Well this was strange:

From Kotaku:

One of Dark Souls 3's most difficult bosses has been defeated in dizzying self challenge. The accomplishment is full of unbelievable parries and stripping.

iHardlyTriHard Gaming faced down the dangerous Champion Gundyr. The challenge was involved. When Gundyr attacks, they spin 720 degrees before parrying behind their back. Then then attack and perform the “Praise the Sun” gesture for some extra swag. Finally, they remove some armor before switching to a new weapon on the fly.

I've tried Dark Souls 1 and 2, and hated both of them, mostly for their early difficulty. I quit early on in both of them. Dark Souls 3 fixes this issue, making the game approachable even to a Souls newbie like me. The game doesn't get too difficult (I breezed through most of the game), but honestly nothing is as difficult as the beginning of the other Souls titles. And I'm okay with this drop in difficulty, because it's the same gameplay experience, just condensed. It more quickly gets you to that point of intense satisfaction where, even though you just died horribly to a boss, you know you've got its number, and will get it next try (or the try after [or the try after {etc}]). It also removes some unnecessary mechanics of the previous games (e.g. hollowing, equip weight affecting stamina recovery) which negates the need to fret over equipment too much.

The high points are the first third and the final boss, during the latter two-thirds your character has become strong enough to handle the enemies since now your attacks stun most enemies. Plus you have enough healing that you can outright tank most bosses during that portion of the game. The final boss is great, though, and at least the areas you move through are neat artistically.

I'd recommend Dark Souls 3 to any newcomer to the series, and for veterans who want a more casual experience. Maybe I'll go back and try the other Souls games again.

Note: I played Knight, wielding a fast 1h sword weapon.

[Minor spoilers / not really spoilers, just talking vaguely about things that happen somewhere in the game]

Some other issues I have with Dark Souls III are three points where the game is just completely unintuitive. The first is the solution to a required boss, Yhorm (I'll drop the epithet to not spoil the boss type, but will discuss the specifics below under [Heavy Spoilers]). It requires you do something mechanically you've never done before, and the hint it gives you is just plain wrong/misleading. The second is what happens just after, the game teleports you to a new location, immediately makes you fight a boss, and doesn't tell you where you ended up. You can kind of guess from the name of the boss (it contains a location), but the game has never done this before and the place you end up is from early on in the game, an area you might have forgotten. The final issue I have is that a bunch of the late-game content (most of the optional bosses) are hidden behind an invisible wall. From what I can tell, nothing tells you about this, so you actually have to slash a wall behind a treasure chest to enter this area.

[Heavy spoilers: boss discussion]

Yhorm the Giant is a trash boss. In his boss room is a white glowie containing a sword, and a message saying "It takes this sword to fell a great tree." Yhorm is a giant, not a tree, so you'd assume it's not for this boss. You attack him, and he has loads of defense, with your attacks doing ~80 damage out of ~20,000 HP. So immediately you think there's a gimmick, and so you try to use that sword, but whacking him with it does even worse damage, and the special changes your stance and causes wind to swirl around the sword, but nothing else seems to get it to do anything. So you go back to the boss fighting normally, and notice he's a pushover, his attacks are all slow and super-telegraphed, and fully blockable with a shield, so you could feasibly hit him the 250 times you need to kill him normally. It's half of an interesting idea, have a boss that's pathetic but require intense tedium to kill it. Of course, I don't want to kill the boss this way, and it turns out the sword in the boss room is the answer, and to use it you have to charge the special for ~15 seconds (a long time in an action game), and after you unleash it, the boss dies in four hits, making it completely trivial to beat since the boss is slow enough to give you time to charge the special.