From Software Dark Souls 3

[sullynathan]

89 on metacritic. It's like 4/10 back in the days. It's gonna be shit...

89 is also dark souls 1 not sure how dark souls 2 is the highest

 

[Makabb]

89 on metacritic. It's like 4/10 back in the days. It's gonna be shit...

 

[Makabb]

Some of the reviews say that DS 3 is a mix of Demon Souls and DS 1, couldnt be better.

 

[Wolfe]

Reviews bunched up: https://reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/4da0z3/review_megathread/

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/04/04/dark-souls-iii-review-pc/

Wot I Think: Dark Souls III
Adam Smith on April 4th, 2016 at 8:01 am.

Dark Souls III [official site] is almost here so if you haven’t done so already, prepare to die. In this spoiler-free review, I’ll explain how From Software’s latest borrows almost as much from trilogy predecessor Demon’s Souls as from the previous two games, and why I might be ready to say goodbye to the series, even though I’ve loved almost every minute of my time in Lothric.

In the moments when I’m feeling generous toward Dark Souls III, I’m tempted to say it takes the best of series-opener (and only non-PC entry) Demon’s Souls and mixes it with the best of Dark Souls I. That’s an argument I reckon I could stitch together.

There have been plenty of those moments, scattered across the tens of hours I’ve already spent with From Software’s latest, but there have been plenty of drawn out moments when I’ve felt as if both I and the series are going through the motions to an extent. To explain why that is, I need to talk about the aspects of the Souls games that I love.

I don’t love difficult games. It’s important to get that out of the way. There are difficult games that I love but I don’t love them because they’re difficult – that’s a side effect of their design. In the case of the Souls series, the most important fact is not that you die but that you come back to life and try again. Keep that in mind.

What I do enjoy, somewhat on the masochistic side, is feeling lost and trapped. Dark Souls does dungeons better than any RPG I’ve ever played, making them both part of the landscape in a way that feels both natural and unnerving, and making them absolutely terrifying. They are shadow and despair, places that will literally sap the souls out of you and leave you alone in the dark without a hope in the world.

For the most part, Dark Souls III forgoes that feeling, opting for broader spaces.

I also enjoy the sense of being in a world made up of layers that can be peeled back and punctured, revealing unexpected connections and pathways. That aspect of the series hasn’t been lost here but it has been weirdly fragmented.

As much as any of the world-building and design, I love the combat. Thankfully, Dark Souls III might be the pinnacle of the series in that regard. The speed and weight of the player character feels just right and the new skills that are attached to weapon types lend extra style and variety to combat. I found most abilities more useful against crowds of normal enemies – and they come in greater numbers than ever before – than against bosses, but I expect the utility of the secondary skills will vary from class to class.

I’ve already expressed my dislike of some creature designs in the early stages of the game and I’m happy to say I found the latter stages the most enjoyable both from a challenge and an aesthetic perspective. It’s a beautiful game throughout though, despite some lapses, and the best looking in the series by far. Even though the level design feels like it flits between themes at times, rather than extending on the expression of a single theme or concept, each area has something to offer visually. The Souls games have always done scale well, with their imposing boss creatures and distant castles that pierce the earth and the sky, but there are larger arenas now.

More room to maneuver means more room for weird monsters to dash, roll and pounce. For the first time in a Souls game, I needed space to breathe mid-combat and was able to find it. Sometimes that involved fleeing from slow-moving but ferocious opponents outside a boss arena, and sometimes it involved exploiting the patterns of a boss’ behaviour to recover health and equilibrium at the far side of a vast space. In the former case, ‘activating’ enemies and then forging ahead without killing them led to some excellent moments of terror when creatures managed to stalk me through an entire level.

That didn’t happen often though because usually, I kill everything that moves. And I kill it over and over again. Repetition, frustration and eventual catharsis. That’s the heart of the game. You’ll see every area of a Dark Souls game so many times on your first playthrough that any weaknesses or inconsistencies have nowhere to hide. They’re games that demand scrutiny and attention in a way that makes everyone who plays them a critic. Flaws are exposed.

Dark Souls III’s flaws aren’t as obvious or as damaging as those in its immediate predecessor. Placement of enemies, level design and combat are all finely crafted, and even the portions that I’ve played again and again and again, through a combination of DYING and retrying early areas with various character builds, hold up to close examination.

The game hits you with combinations. Not in the sense that there are flurries of attacks from a single enemy, although that is true as well, but in the sense that the layout of an area and the placement of the enemies within it form a sequence of events. Many of these sequences are brilliant, pulling off Edge of Tomorrow/Live.Die.Repeat’s gimmick of placing the protagonist in the role of omniscient mastermind and empowering you in a way that plays against the series’ notoriety as a mechanism for misery and masochism.

In defiance of that reductive labelling – which plays into the idea that Dark Souls is interesting only for its difficulty and that it is in fact defined by its difficulty – I can confirm that I’ve felt like a complete badass for hours at a time while playing. Walking through a village, slashing, backstabbing and hurling bombs, knowing where your targets are before they’ve even had a chance to react to your presence – that’s the kind of power trip that the Souls recipe of perfection through repetition permits. It’s not for everyone but for those who have drank the Estus, it’s one of the most potent elixirs in gaming.

And while I’m hesitant to suggest this might be the Souls game to win over a few non-believers, particularly given that it’s the fifth in the series by some counts (PS4-exclusive Bloodborne is a very close sibling), there are aspects of III that might frustrate long-time fans while making the game slightly more palatable for those who have struggled to find a foothold in previous entries.

Most of my concerns relate to the bonfires. Central to both the lore and the mechanics of the series, bonfires allow you to cash in your winnings to upgrade equipment and stats, and in this entry they’re also used to teleport between areas and back to the Firelink Shrine, the central hub wherein you can buy equipment, upgrade gear and level up your character.

Having all expenditure of souls take place in a discrete part of the world, disconnected from events elsewhere, provides a sanctuary and I quite like the idea of this one safe place in a world gone to hell and ruin. But it also means extra loading screens whenever you want to take care of business (short loading screens, mind) and emphasises the fragmented nature of this world. There are wonderful places to explore in Dark Souls III and they’re all linked in imaginative and spectacular ways but those links are visual rather than physical. They are within the same continuous world and there is a logic to your progression through them, but the entire setting is not one wondrous physical labyrinth.

In short, Dark Souls III contains some superbly designed levels but Dark Souls I, as a whole, might be my favourite level of all time.

And that goes back to the bonfires. They’re entrances and exits as well as checkpoints, and they’re not particularly sparsely placed. All of that combines to eliminate one of my favourite aspects of Dark Souls I – and it’s a feature that the first sequel also lacked – and that’s the fear of becoming lost in some place that would have been best left forgotten. Even on the rare occasion you do descend into depths, they’re relatively shallow depths, and the game’s broader structure doesn’t allow for the possibility of becoming trapped, burning life after life in an attempt to escape some claustrophobic dead-end. You’re never far from safety.

That’s not to say Dark Souls III will wrap you in cotton wool, but I’ve found it the easiest in the series. The pinch of salt that you should take with that particular statement relates to the fact that I’ve played these games a lot so experience may have been a factor, but I think the slightly faster pace of combat and the presence of more but feebler enemies in many areas is a factor as well. On top of that, the character I’ve played with most – a mercenary with either dual-wielded super-powered swords or a single sword and shield – turned out to have the ideal skillset for many of the bosses. There’s a certain type of boss creature that crops up several times and I took the same approach in each instance. Worked every time.

It’s not as gruelling a game as the previous two – and gruelling would be a complimentary term here – but I do think it’s an improvement on the second. That’s partly because the combat is better than it’s ever been but it’s also down to the design of the individual areas. They’re more imaginative, in a structural sense, even if they’re sometimes a disappointment thematically and visually.

One of the better areas in the game, in terms of its twists and turns, looks like a missing chapter from The Evil Within. There’s a consistent crossing of the line between dark fantasy horror and giblets-and-goo horror, and the latter is never as interesting to me as the surreal jagged edges of the faded worlds in the previous games.

To be clear, the majority of everything worked for me but there is a lack of cohesion.

I’ve said before that Dark Souls II, without Miyazaki at the helm, felt like a cover version. Dark Souls III feels like a remix. There are areas that quote previous entries in the series, treating them as jazz standards to be reinterpreted and reshaped, and there are moments of deja vu. It’s an energetic remix but some of the flow and rhythm has been lost.

With all of that said, there have been few games over the last twelve months that I’ve enjoyed more, and I’m already planning my next playthrough. The lightness of the combat and the variety of weapons and abilities available make experimentation extremely tempting, and the changes to Estus use (flasks can be upgraded and Estus levels split between abilities and health) allow for more flexibility than ever. I want to try a ranged and spellcasting build next, mostly because those are skills I rarely explore at all.

There are so many joys still to discover, and I’ve been careful not to spoil the ones that I have discovered. Secret areas, puzzling connections between games, covenants to join and shrines to unearth. This is a very healthy and dense game.

It’s not a strange game though. Not anymore, with its predecessors casting such long shadows. While refined in some areas and oddly conservative in others, Dark Souls III is, above all, a Dark Souls game. I was often delighted but I was very rarely surprised.

Technically, I had some framerate drops when first entering an area with lots of foliage detail and expansive views, but they only lasted for a few seconds while my graphics card found its feet. There are no cursed areas, with consistently bad framerates, as in the port of the first game, and my biggest disappointment is that From didn’t make more use of lighting effects.

Having somewhat fluffed their lines with Dark Souls II, which was originally shown to have much greater contrasts between dark indoor areas and bright outdoor settings, there was a perfect chance to deliver the perfect soliloquy here. But, again, torches are useless because not even the dankest dungeons are ever all that dark. A shame.

Oh, and that’s another criticism, so let me reiterate that I’m extremely glad to have played Dark Souls III and will certainly be making time to play it again, but I’m not sure I’d be entirely keen on another similar adventure anytime soon. More of a good thing is always welcome but I think the law of diminishing returns may be kicking in, for me at least. I’d love to hear Miyazaki and From’s next big concept album rather than another set of remixes.

If this were to be the final Souls game, I’d be happy to say goodbye. It’s not quite the crowning achievement of the series but it’s a fantastically inventive and fluid interpretation of the formula. And perhaps that would make it a great first Souls game for somebody new to the series as well.

My complaints are minor, given the quality of the game as a whole, and some of them are directed toward elements that make this entry more approachable than its predecessors. Just remember, if you are going to play, not even the biggest and most brutal beasts are as tough as you imagine when you first see them, and the next bonfire is rarely more than a few minutes away.

 

[toro]

Combat is not better than DaS2 or even DaS1 which is a big fucking fail. It's different but not better. DaS3 combat = BB combat despite all the tweaks. Some people like that, some don't.

Bullshit in massive quantities. This shit is peddled by Namco's marketing department.

 

[GrainWetski]

A shame that they apparently turned it into some Blood Souls abomination for new players, but hardly unexpected.

 

[Cromwell]

Combat is not better than DaS2 or even DaS1 which is a big fucking fail. It's different but not better. DaS3 combat = BB combat despite all the tweaks. Some people like that, some don't.

Bullshit in massive quantities. This shit is peddled by Namco's marketing department.

Whats the difference between ds combat and bb combat? Is it only "its faster" like the reviews say or something more? (never played bb)

 

[Caim]

Whats the difference between ds combat and bb combat? Is it only "its faster" like the reviews say or something more? (never played bb)

Dark Souls has blocking, while ranged attacks like bows and magic take time to use.

BB only has rolling, no blocking and it has firearms with which you can perform quick ranged attacks. Weapons can also change form to become radically different in their function. If you take a hit you get damage on something of a time limit, if you hit the enemy back in that time limit you regain a bit of the health you've lost.

 

[Wolfe]

Loved Bloodborne's combat.

 

[Cromwell]

Whats the difference between ds combat and bb combat? Is it only "its faster" like the reviews say or something more? (never played bb)

Dark Souls has blocking, while ranged attacks like bows and magic take time to use.

BB only has rolling, no blocking and it has firearms with which you can perform quick ranged attacks. Weapons can also change form to become radically different in their function. If you take a hit you get damage on something of a time limit, if you hit the enemy back in that time limit you regain a bit of the health you've lost.

Sounds different to me but not worse, although I dont know what to make of the hit back mechanic that sounds slightly retarded and may fore you to stay in range instead of getting away. But since I never played BB I dont know how this feels in practice. Since I mostly forgot to block in ds2 and only did it if I absolutely had to and normally just tried to evade attacks the new ds system sounds like it would suit me.

So the critic about this system is that its different from what the other two ds games where not thats its worse per se?

 

[Mystary!]

Does DSIII have all those features, or just the "faster" part?

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-04-04-dark-souls-3-review

Dark Souls 3 review
Third time's the charm.

Dark Souls 3 sees the return of the king in a spectacular conclusion to From Software's trilogy.

In an industry built on sequels there are plenty of also-rans - those that fail to move on, those that change too much, and those that can't handle the expectation. Though it would be harsh to call Dark Souls 2 a failure all three of these factors played a part in its final form, with the anxiety of influence leaving it, for many players, feeling hollow. Similar opinions must be held behind From Software's doors, else how to explain the return of Hidetaka Miyazaki to the Souls series as director? The fantasy genre has form, at least, with third acts about the return of the king.

One of the player's first significant accomplishments in Dark Souls 3 is finding a much-changed Firelink Shrine, indicating the more direct relationship with Dark Souls that will be borne out over this epic journey. At the core of Dark Souls 2 was a message about repetition, about how cycles can become ever-diminishing and ever-further from their source, and in so doing it shifted focus from the world created by Dark Souls towards its own distorted reflection of same. It's not a bad concept, as these things go, but Dark Souls 3 has no such compunctions. This is surprisingly direct and aggressive with what has gone before, to the extent it feels like From Software wants to definitively cap the series.

Dark Souls was a world where history had already happened over hundreds of years, and you as the Chosen Undead were learning about it by picking through the debris. In Dark Souls 3 this long-term wear and tear is applied to the Lordran we knew. Firelink Shrine is the first of what will be many environmental callbacks, each bearing the weight of centuries and many changed beyond recognition. Some areas have been built-upon, layers of stone swaddling the original architecture nearly beyond recognition, while others have been looted or transplanted over the years, and relics of the world past are in new homes.

Sights like this are what makes the Souls games so special, because you know that at some point you'll be exploring it. Maybe my deprived character can find some trousers...

One is treated as an opportunity, a second chance to get it right. The lost kingdom of Izalith is crucial to Dark Souls' world, but the area itself ended up relatively bare and rushed - a huge lava floor filled with placeholder enemies followed by a small settlement and the worst boss in the game. Dark Souls 3 re-imagines Izalith as it should have been, a descending stone labyrinth riven with fire and heat, filled with the detritus of ancient war. Rooms are piled with the corpses of demons, former citizens are now so feral they move on all fours, and intricate corridors criss-cross each other with countless dead ends and hidden routes. You push on to find goat-like pyromancers lurking around corners and blasting fire from huge distances and, if you can find them, there are even yet remnants of the black knights charged with holding back the flood.

The black knights also introduce one of Dark Souls 3's more curiously prevalent tactics - for a first run-through, at least. In several sections you can drag different types of enemy together and, with a bit of luck, get them fighting. Enemies have always been able to suffer collateral damage in the Souls games but this was more about AoE attacks from bosses. Here it's not a foolproof strategy, because aggro-ing multiple enemies is always risky, but there are many opportunities to do it with tough enemies - in the case of the black knights, one can be used to take out or at least weaken an especially bothersome clutch of pyromancers, while deeper in Izalith another can provide invaluable assistance against a lethal NPC. Such additions are not game-changers, but they're welcome for allowing players to get cute in some especially-deadly situations.

Most of us will need it. There are surprises in how From Software has approached Dark Souls 3 and one is the incredible challenge it offers, to the extent an early patch toning certain elements down would be no surprise. I know these games well but, even allowing for ring-rust, was simply knocked flat by many enemies and bosses time and again. Part of this is Dark Souls 3 working with a familiar combat system, and several returning enemy types, which has led to an increase in what it expects from the player. Later enemies are relentless and clumped in groups so it's not uncommon to be simply harried to death, boxed-in by constant blows or unseen assailants, and mercilessly finished-off every time you go for a panic chug of health-giving Estus.

The big reason behind this increase in enemy aggression, I would hazard, is Bloodborne. The greatest game of 2015, also developed by From Software and directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, was a Souls-alike, in the sense of sharing the same foundation but using this to create a much more offensive combat system based around transforming ('trick) weapons. Bloodborne's battles are fluid, intense, and tremendously exciting - as an arch in-game description notes, "shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity." And it's in this context that Dark Souls 3 returns to the classic sword-and-shield combat of the Souls games.

The mini-bosses are fantastic, and many of them are hidden in out-of-the-way places or have objectives associated with them. Taking on this lava worm, for example, is suicide while a giant arbalest on a nearby hill is active.

Rather than worrying about matching Bloodborne on aggressive play, then, From Software has made defensive strategy more nuanced, rewarding and unforgiving than it ever has been. Several changes are immediately apparent. The over-fussy parry animation of Dark Souls 2 has been replaced with the original's crisp, instantaneous shield flicks - and simpler critical hit animations. The parry timings feel tighter, but partly this is down to the more relentless onslaughts enemies unleash alongside their wonderful attack animations - full of delicious, devilish little pauses and fakes to throw you off.

This context also limits the effectiveness of turtling, though it's still a viable strategy. The dodge-roll's invincibility frames are your first and best defensive option, but these enemies are better are tracking mistimed rolls and more cautious of cheap backstabs, while their punishes are lethal. The game's opening hours are gentler, though everything's relative, but in the latter stages Dark Souls 3 is set up to give all but the very best a pummelling.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the bosses, a diverse gauntlet of bruisers, magic-users, and one-off set-pieces that challenge every side of the player's approach. The earliest bosses are neutered to give new players a chance to acclimatise, with huge wind-ups and plenty of opportunities to use Estus, but Dark Souls 3 soon begins serving up classic fight after classic fight, some riffing on themes of old and most entirely new. A welcome surprise is how well-used the 'gimmick' fights are, a hit-and-miss element of the series that here is used sparingly to powerful effect. But the best thing is how much the later boss fights, the most spectacularly dangerous enemies From Software can come up with, focus on basic fighting technique.

The Dancer of the Boreal Valley, for example, is a portmanteau of ideas typical of how Dark Souls 3 approaches the series' past. This boss is unmistakably modelled on Ciaran, a Dark Souls NPC that fought using a set of silver and gold curved blades called tracers. They were weapons that, as Miyazaki said at the time, suggested a certain image of their user. Ciaran was a side character in Dark Souls but her spiritual heir brings this image to life, combining pirouetting dance techniques with wickedly sudden swings and impacts - the deadly flashes of gold and silver distracting your eye as the blade hits home from another angle. This fight is simply about defending and attacking at the right moments yet, such is the physical and visual onslaught, keeping calm is the real challenge.

A theme for these bosses is visual spectacle, which Souls has always had but never in such an effect-laden manner. While fighting the Curse-rotted Greatwood, a giant tree that seems to be weak in the genitals, it literally brings the house down. Pontiff Sulyvahn is fought in a huge chapel and alternates between weapons, with the great fiery arcs of his sword crashing through pews and lecterns as you dive for safety. A later fight atop a bridge casts you against another spiritual heir to a series favourite, resplendent in chrome, whose blows crackle and shake the screen with their power - and who is joined midway through battle by dragons either side of the arena that begin to rain down fire. It can leave you breathless.

The parry's return to the original game's snappy precision is one of the smallest but most important changes in Dark Souls 3. The defensive pace is quicker than ever before, so pulling one out while the enemy's mid-combo is a joy.

A special mention, finally, for the Prince Lothric fight, a pure sword battle that often seems anything but. A truism about the Souls games is that the red bar isn't so important as the green bar: that is, a player with 1hp can still fight and dodge, but a player with no stamina is a sitting duck. The Lothric fight is all about testing this, facing the player against a ferocious and seemingly-unstoppable opponent that requires absolute mastery of the stamina bar to defeat. Blocking alone will quickly see it depleted, and relying solely on dodges is a steep learning curve, so in this attritional battle you need to use both and still have the energy to swing (and get away) when there's an opening. I must have died 20 times before beating this guy, and by the final few fights my relationship with the stamina bar was at the zen level. I knew not just when to roll but when to sidestep instead (saving stamina), when to slide a quick hit in during certain of his combos, and each stamina-chewing block that was forced felt like a strategic failure. When I finally beat him I only had to heal once. That's the kind of satisfaction you just can't buy.

Perhaps the most divisive characteristic of Dark Souls 3 will be the bombast. Demon's Souls and to a lesser extent Dark Souls were mysterious, with moments of great contemplative beauty scattered throughout their forbidding worlds. DSIII doesn't have anything ethereal about it, with even the lore seeming a little too explicit, and the world is painted in much firmer strokes. There are many extraordinary environments, and the centrepiece of Lothric Castle is stunning, but the problem is not so much anything Dark Souls 3 does or doesn't do as what it is. This is intended as a conclusion, the climax of one of the finest trilogies gaming has ever seen, and this fact precludes the atmosphere of those earlier worlds.

Dark Souls 3 ties up certain threads that might have been better left to speculation and, in a wider sense, indulges in fan service. Many characters from both earlier games return, either in literal or spiritual form, and the latter are frankly much better. It's a mystery why Andre the blacksmith is now installed at Firelink Shrine, much less why after such a fantastical transplant he's given such boring lines. One of the old Firekeepers from Dark Souls 2, meanwhile, now keeps shop and talks in a diction that comes across as a parody of Souls-speak. "Knowest thou of that soppy gossip? That cordial intrusion layeth the path to embers. And so thou art in need of a soapstone, ashen one." Right.

This is a question of taste but I find Dark Souls 3 lacking in poetry, the ambiguous but memorable lines and descriptions that can inspire days and weeks of thought about their possibilities. The language in the Souls series always had archaic elements, but never at the expense of meaning. "If substantiation be thy want, set thine eyes upon my charred corse" is needlessly over-written when plainer words would give the sense much more power. There are countless exceptions to this, especially the items relating to Aldrich which bring me out in shudders, but in a broader sense this is again not so much to do with the writing and everything to do with the well-worn grooves of an established style.

Many one-off hostile NPCs and invaders populate the levels, and there are some especially tough group fights scattered throughout. One particular NPC in Izalith will delight and destroy fans in equal measure.

Dark Souls 3 explains many things directly and, in eagerness to include what's gone before, has something to say about many important characters or events that, arguably, diminishes rather than exalts them. Some may prefer this approach, while new players will scarcely notice anything amiss. I find it tolerable but only because certain endings for familiar characters - such as that Aldrich story - really showcase Miyazaki's talent for the psychologically macabre, while the more oblique inheritances - such as Ciaran and the Dancer - are nearly all wonderful. Other aspects, such as the Onion Knight, seem only there for the sake of the reference. It's hard to avoid thinking that the publisher behind the appalling taint of Slashy Souls may be behind crowd-pleasers like this, as well as the constant Praise the Sun-ing, but the damage is at least kept slight.

The same sadly cannot be said for an unwelcome Dark Souls legacy - framerate drops. Dark Souls 3 features some astounding vistas and huge open environments, some of which it has trouble handling. An enormous swamp is the first time you'll see it struggle to cope, but the worst offender is Castle Lothric - which is more or less the climactic environmental challenge, utterly beautiful, and has significant drops throughout. (Digital Foundry has had an early look at the final console code, and will be looking at the PC version in the not too distant future.)

In addition to this, on a handful of occasions enemies either glitched into the scenery or ended up floating in mid-air. Once, I escaped from an enemy onto an elevator only to have them fall through the elevator's 'solid' roof onto my head. On another occasion, the game lost the online connection and returned to title menu while I was at the Blacksmith - when I returned, my Dragon Crest shield had reverted from +4 to +3 but the 8 twinkling titanite spent on it was gone. From Software games do not typically release with such ugly problems.

These faults are real and should not be ignored, but are ultimately dwarfed by Dark Souls 3's vision. This feels like the biggest Souls game by a distance, not just in terms of sheer scale but in the achievement of delivering a kind of 'ultimate' Souls experience. Old hands may grouse about this not being quite as pure or unusual an experience as the earlier games but, in truth, the Souls series has transitioned from niche hit into mainstream blockbuster with only the slightest of compromises.

The fact is that From Software own the action RPG genre to such an extent that the only valid comparison is with themselves - not a single other studio can match the quality or rate of production of the four Souls games and Bloodborne. Dark Souls 3 bears the hallmarks of a mighty heave to bring closure, from creatives who have long since mastered their tools and style.

This is a truly epic journey, from your first faltering steps across gloomy cliffs to striding like a lord-slayer through Lothric Castle. Like all epics it has endless diversions, quarrels, unexpected companions, and great big fights. Is it the finest Souls game yet? I don't know; it might be. I can say this, though: Dark Souls 3 is a fabulous game, and a fitting conclusion to the greatest trilogy of modern times.

 

[GrainWetski]

Does DSIII have all those features, or just the "faster" part?

Only the faster and lighter part. Estus drinking is essentially instant now, for example.

Old hands may grouse about this not being quite as pure or unusual an experience as the earlier games but, in truth, the Souls series has transitioned from niche hit into mainstream blockbuster with only the slightest of compromises.

Cute, but how did the series become a mainstream success in the first place if this one needed to be changed to achieve that? Weird statement unless he somehow thinks the first Dark Souls wasn't a mainstream success.

 

[Morgoth]

9.6729346/10

 

[praetor]

i think infinijew is doing this on purpose just to piss us off. right? i mean, only a colossal moron would otherwise post reviews as if they're in any way relevant... particularly from absolutely garbage sources like eurogamer or that insult humankind that is rps. on the other hand, we're talking about a vehement PoE defender here, so it's probably a combination of both

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Combat is not better than DaS2 or even DaS1 which is a big fucking fail. It's different but not better. DaS3 combat = BB combat despite all the tweaks. Some people like that, some don't.

Bullshit in massive quantities. This shit is peddled by Namco's marketing department.

How is DS3 combat = BB combat? It looks faster than DS2 combat but on a par with DeS combat maybe slightly faster but not as fast as BB. Parries are from DS1 , backstabs from DS2, shit like shields, bows, 200 different weapons, miracles, sorcery, pyromancies,light and heavy armor are back. There is fast and fat roll. There is no regain health after taking a hit and no grind for blood vials. I cant think of one gameplay aspect copied from BB. Maybe second phase in boss fights? Although that was already in DS2.

Undead Settlement looks similar to some BB locations but that's aesthetic issue and not game mechanics and tbh how many variations of bleak medieval village you can think of?

 

[sullynathan]

Yeah I'm not seeing how combat in this game is worse than DS1 or 2 except someone mentioning that power stance is gone.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Parry actually works the same as DS2 btw. Not sure about the rest.

 

[Seaking4]

I wish we had parries from DS1 and backstabs from DS2 but I think it is the other way around. Did they bring back kicking?

 

[sullynathan]

I hate kicking, it's annoying that it's mapped to the attack button

 

[praetor]

kicking is in. backstabs are between DaS1 and 2, closer to the former, parries are similar (i.e. really easy to use and abuse. not quite on DaS1/DeS level of doing it on accident but...)

 

[toro]

Combat is not better than DaS2 or even DaS1 which is a big fucking fail. It's different but not better. DaS3 combat = BB combat despite all the tweaks. Some people like that, some don't.

Bullshit in massive quantities. This shit is peddled by Namco's marketing department.

How is DS3 combat = BB combat? It looks faster than DS2 combat but on a par with DeS combat maybe slightly faster but not as fast as BB. Parries are from DS1 , backstabs from DS2, shit like shields, bows, 200 different weapons, miracles, sorcery, pyromancies,light and heavy armor are back. There is fast and fat roll. There is no regain health after taking a hit and no grind for blood vials. I cant think of one gameplay aspect copied from BB. Maybe second phase in boss fights? Although that was already in DS2.

Undead Settlement looks similar to some BB locations but that's aesthetic issue and not game mechanics and tbh how many variations of bleak medieval village you can think of?

It doesn't just look. It is faster and that comes will all the bullshit from BB: hectic fights, aggressive approach is encouraged and shitty pvp.

Also please note that I didn't say DaS3 combat is worse than the previous games, I just said DaS3 is different. I'm still not sold on it.

Maybe I'm wrong but when I watched the streams, I honestly didn't see a DaS game. It's just a reskinned BB which ... I don't know what it means.

I need to play it to get the correct feeling of the combat.

 

[Ash]

I wish the Souls games had an actual soundtrack. Of course it's intentional that there is minimal music for realistic atmosphere but I don't really give a shit about that and think it's a huge loss to not have fitting music to each area true old school style. Maybe mods can fix (any in the series, I don't care which, all are good)?

 

[Makabb]

All i wanted in bloodborne was shields....... I welcome DS 3