From Software Dark Souls 3

[Great Deceiver]

Even at its worst, Dark Souls is still better than 90% of stuff out there, so I wouldn't call DS3 a bad game. I'm sure it would have been fine if I had not played the others.

And I'm not into the lore stuff at all. The only FROM game that made me care about that stuff was Bloodborne, but that was a very unique case.

 

[Doktor Best]

Agree. There is no bad Dark Souls game.

 

[Silva]

My main problem with DS3 is the corridor-like progression of the world. The levels themselves are sprawling in (mostly) good ways, and the bosses are good, but knowing that I must take them in the same linear fashion everytime my urge to play kicks in makes me give up. They should have added a couple more forks or something.

(well, this and the fact the aesthetics of some levels is puke-inducing shit. Wood of Sacrifices with it's mix of magenta palette and low-poly count, I'm looking at you)

 

[Silverfish]

Still better than Shitborne though.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[Great Deceiver]

Plodding along in my playthrough and not feeling it at all. Just finished the cathedral and it's a very neutered nod to Bloodborne. Deacons of the Deep is another one of those laughable shit bosses (reminded me of Phalanx or that cove boss in DS2). So lazy.

Seems like this game is nothing but weak fanservice. It's like they went down a bulleted item list for fans and were trying to tick most of them. Feels very soulless (ha).

 

[Silva]

Plodding along in my playthrough and not feeling it at all. Just finished the cathedral and it's a very neutered nod to Bloodborne. Deacons of the Deep is another one of those laughable shit bosses (reminded me of Phalanx or that cove boss in DS2). So lazy.

Seems like this game is nothing but weak fanservice. It's like they went down a bulleted item list for fans and were trying to tick most of them. Feels very soulless (ha).

Deacons is shit indeed. But I would persevere, if only yo see the good bosses.

Have you seen the Dancer yet? You can kill the old bitch in Lothric Castle to shortcut/face the Dancer. It's a great boss. But watch out It's tough, specially for Dexers.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Plodding along in my playthrough and not feeling it at all. Just finished the cathedral and it's a very neutered nod to Bloodborne. Deacons of the Deep is another one of those laughable shit bosses (reminded me of Phalanx or that cove boss in DS2). So lazy.

Seems like this game is nothing but weak fanservice. It's like they went down a bulleted item list for fans and were trying to tick most of them. Feels very soulless (ha).

Deacons is shit indeed. But I would persevere, if only yo see the good bosses.

Have you seen the Dancer yet? You can kill the old bitch in Lothric Castle to shortcut/face the Dancer. It's a great boss. But watch out It's tough, specially for Dexers.

I haven't seen a dancer yet, playing blind and offline (like I do for every Souls game). I'll probably play until the end, I'm sure there will be some cool bosses later on.

Strangely enough, playing DS3 made me more hyped for Elden Ring, which I wasn't at all. I hope they can leverage more King's Field influences for that game and that it feels a bit fresher.

 

[Black Angel]

Just finished the cathedral and it's a very neutered nod to Bloodborne.

I vaguely remembering liking the Cathedral since its level and encounter design was reminiscent of Dark Souls 1 level, but that's about it and only the Cathedral

 

[Wunderbar]

Cathedral is the only location in the game where level designers put some thought into bonfire placement and tried to limit themselves. The area itself is very diverse (a graveyard, a rooftop with deadly pitfalls, the upper parts of the cathedral, then the lower parts), and there's a lot of neat shortcuts looping back to the central room.

From the pure gameplay standpoint it's one of the better areas in DaS3.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Plodding along in my playthrough and not feeling it at all. Just finished the cathedral and it's a very neutered nod to Bloodborne. Deacons of the Deep is another one of those laughable shit bosses (reminded me of Phalanx or that cove boss in DS2). So lazy.

Seems like this game is nothing but weak fanservice. It's like they went down a bulleted item list for fans and were trying to tick most of them. Feels very soulless (ha).

Deacons is shit indeed. But I would persevere, if only yo see the good bosses.

Have you seen the Dancer yet? You can kill the old bitch in Lothric Castle to shortcut/face the Dancer. It's a great boss. But watch out It's tough, specially for Dexers.

I first faced him after killing Yhorm, being instantly teleported to the room and walking forward without resting, I had 2 Estus left. Died but got him on my 2nd try, it was very easy but I'm probably overpowered for pve at this point. Feel kind of silly that I haven't found anything better than my starting weapon after 30 hours (the initial Mercenary weapon, twinblades something). I was pretty excited to use the Dancer's weapon, but then realized it's a piece of shit that doesn't scale and has to go through 3 resistances.

 

[Silva]

Man, you killed Dancer in 2nd try first time facing her in a dex/dodge build?

I must be really shit in this game.


EDIT: I doubt you do that to Sister Friede!

 

[Great Deceiver]

Man, you killed Dancer in 2nd try first time facing her in a dex/dodge build?

I must be really shit in this game.

Well, I was SL 60 or something with sharp twinblades +8. I feel very overpowered and this weapon shouldn't be as good as it is.

Killed Yhorm by slashing at his ankles for 15 minutes too, fuck that scripted weapon

 

[Silva]

You need heavier drugs. Try Sister Friede in the painted world.

 

[Great Deceiver]

The only boss that gave me significant trouble so far were Abyss Watchers, but only because I took awhile to figure out the gimmick. I think they took around 5-6 tries. The rest were a joke honestly, my favourite was probably Pontiff.

I'm sure the DLC will up the ante and kick my ass, though.

edit: killed a couple more bosses, the dragon was a step up from the usual From scripted bullshit bosses but not not by much. Consumed king looked cool but was too easy as well.

Decided to try the painted world as I had completely forgotten about it and I guess I'm grossly overlevelled at this point (SL92), but it's still a challenge.

edit 2: The game is actually growing on me. A lot of it is a rehash (a LOT), but they frontloaded many drab looking areas and it does get considerably better later on. I'm approaching it like a "greatest hits" sort of thing, maybe "DS remix".

I still think the gameplay is pretty weak, r1 spam does too much, it seems like enemies don't have poise or something. Another thing that bothers me is the spammy nature of enemies themselves, the game almost expects you to spam interrupt them instead of favouring a more reactive style of play like the previous games in the series. Another Bloodborne influence gone wrong, it worked in that game but not so much here.

I'm approaching the end and my favourite area was by far Irythill of the Boreal Valley and it's not even close. The optional areas I've seen so far are all pretty short/underwhelming, including Izalith (the worst even in this game), Unmarked Graves and Archdragon Peak. The rehashed areas from DS1 are mostly considerably inferior to their original versions, including Anor Londo, which was pathetic in DS3 tbh. It feels like this game is the longest of all Souls games (including BB, which was pretty long), but maybe it's fatigue on my part.

In any case, I still maintain what I said earlier - even what I consider to be the weakest DS game is still miles ahead of other stuff out there right now.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I finally found a boss to kick my ass - Friede. First two phases were cake, but then phase 3... I must have died around 20 times.

Nameless King was really cool too. My 3 favourite bosses are Nameless King, Friede and Pontiff.

Just finished Ashes of Ariandel and it was pretty bad to be honest, apart from the boss. Tomorrow I'll do Ringed City.

edit: I've been playing Ringed City for a few hours, hoped to get Murakumo from the invading mob but all she dropped was a lousy Wolf Ring +3. I missed the first opportunity to get it because I don't walk around embered very often and I missed her first invasion before killing Yhorm.

Managed to farm a Carthus Curved Greatsword and I finally replaced my starting weapon, Twinblades. I also got the crow dex weapon from Painted World but didn't like the moveset at all. the curved greatsword is great, nice for staggers and puts out a ton of damage. Not sure if they're better than the Twinblades per se (l1 spam) but I'll keep using them.

The 2nd DLC area is pretty tough. Regular mobs are almost as hard as bosses and it's packed very densely. I guess you can run through everything but I almost never do that. The first boss was pretty easy (the twin demons), let's see the others.
Area looks like shit, though. Same drab gray as half the stuff in the game, and another fucking swamp. Fuck.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Gotta admit, Midir is making me rage a little bit. Will try again when I'm more calm tomorrow.

 

[racofer]

Will try again tomorrow.

That is the best Dark Souls strategy for every situation.

 

[Silverfish]

Gotta admit, Midir is making me rage a little bit. Will try again when I'm more calm tomorrow.

Midir is a movie you can interact with at very specific intervals. That mindset makes all the difference and makes him a pushover.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Gotta admit, Midir is making me rage a little bit. Will try again when I'm more calm tomorrow.

Midir is a movie you can interact with at very specific intervals. That mindset makes all the difference and makes him a pushover.

Yeah, coming in fresh today I beat him after a few tries. Staying in front of him at mid distance (not too far) makes him do his bullshit moves less frequently. What bothered me the most about this fight was the inconsistency of his damage (sometimes the charge would 1-hit kill from 100% hp, sometimes it would take 60% off my bar), but the patterns themselves are consistent and there's no delayed stuff like other bosses.

He took the most tries, I must have spent over an hour considering all attempts trying to kill him, but I don't think he was a good boss, just frustrating.

On the other hand, I really liked Gael. He reminded me a lot of Orphan of Kos from Bloodborne - very aggressive, high damage but also readable and low on bullshit. Gael took me 5-6 tries to beat.

Anyway, I finished the game doing the Usurpation of Flame ending (the Yuria questline), last boss was cool but I was way overpowered and killed him on the first try without paying any attention. I'm sure for base game characters the fight must have been fun/hard.

My final top 5 bosses in the game are:

1. Nameless King
2. Gael
3. Friede
4. Pontiff
5. Twin Princes

I'd probably put Champion Gundyr there somewhere but I also killed him on my first try so I maybe I lucked out and didn't get to experience all he has to offer.

It's funny that playing through DS3 I thought the bosses were much more memorable than the levels (which I thought were pretty bland overall), but despite there being so many of them, I had trouble coming up with the 5th name on the list.

Final opinion of the game is much the same as I had before. I think DS3 is the weakest Souls (my personal favourite list is BB>Dark Souls>Demon's Souls>DS2>DS3; I really like Sekiro but it's another thing entirely so I won't place it on this list) but still an excellent game. I don't care for multiplayer in these games, always play offline and never summon NPCs (I did do the quest for the lady that calls you into her world to kill a phantom to get into a covenant though, forgot her name)

Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had gone with a different build and used a different weapon for most of the playthrough, so perhaps it's my own fault. Sellsword Twinblades are just much too powerful, especially for a starting weapon. Although I found a lot of weapons that could have replaced it (the crow quills, Carthus Curved Greatsword which I used for awhile, etc.) their movesets were inferior and damage output simply cannot compare to twinblade L1 spam with lightning buff. I think maybe a full tank with ultra greatsword build would have been more fun for me, but I'm not going to replay the game.

I'm glad From is trying something 'new' with Elden Ring, because the formula is pretty worn out by now. As I said before, hopefully they can work in some stuff from King's Field or Shadow Tower into the new game.

 

[Black Angel]

Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had gone with a different build and used a different weapon for most of the playthrough, so perhaps it's my own fault. Sellsword Twinblades are just much too powerful, especially for a starting weapon.

To this day, I still couldn't understand this kind of mindset. First, it was Zweihander in Dark Souls 1, now I see this with Dark Souls 3. What's wrong with using what you think the best weapon out there? I get it if you just want to feel challenged, and I can kinda get it when the weapon in question needs some kind of exploit to get like the Drake Sword, but when I see people somehow invalidate their own or, Lord forbid, others experience because they're using certain tools that the game provided them, it's just strange.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had gone with a different build and used a different weapon for most of the playthrough, so perhaps it's my own fault. Sellsword Twinblades are just much too powerful, especially for a starting weapon.

To this day, I still couldn't understand this kind of mindset. First, it was Zweihander in Dark Souls 1, now I see this with Dark Souls 3. What's wrong with using what you think the best weapon out there? I get it if you just want to feel challenged, and I can kinda get it when the weapon in question needs some kind of exploit to get like the Drake Sword, but when I see people somehow invalidate their own or, Lord forbid, others experience because they're using certain tools that the game provided them, it's just strange.

Well, that's a bit drastic, I don't say it invalidates my experience (much less others'), I just feel that Sellsword Twinblades are extremely, disproportionately strong especially because they're a starting item.

I still felt plenty challenged on a few bosses, I don't think the weapon robbed me of all challenge or anything like that. I just felt they perhaps disincentivized me from sticking with other options even though I tried them out for a bit.

At the end of the day, the moveset was far too good and damage output was ridiculous. I'm not butthurt about it or anything, but I also can't say I don't like the item variety in DS3 simply because I found the best weapon (for me) and stuck with it. That's what I meant by "my fault". I don't think I was using an exploit or anything like that, but I do believe it is the game's fault for providing such an easy option that stays not only relevant but extremely strong throughout the whole game - I would argue stronger than anything else for the effort involved, even though there are still significant shortcomings to the weapon such as its range.

Also keep in mind I'm ignoring PVP completely and I'm fully aware that it's probably dealt with appropriately in that respect.

 

[Black Angel]

Well, that's a bit drastic, I don't say it invalidates my experience (much less others'), I just feel that Sellsword Twinblades are extremely, disproportionately strong especially because they're a starting item.

That's fair, but I think that's what makes the Soulsborne games appealing, at least to me; the possibility to finish the game with just the starting equipment.

Some people would argue that that's what devalue/invalidate these games as an RPG (aside from the fact that it's even possible to do SL1 runs at all), but personally I never sought an RPG experience from the Soulsborne/Fromsoft games in the first place.

 

[Jaedar]

 

[Caim]

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that Elden Ring isn't gonna live up to the hype. It'll still be good and fun, but it won't live up to the hype.