I’ve just completed the final chapter in the trilogy of Dark Souls games (with the exception of the DLCs), and I thought I’d offer some thoughts on the game following my generally positive critique and comparison of Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin with the first game. It is particularly apt, then, that Dark Souls 3 is less a sequel to Dark Souls 2 than it is another separate attempt to follow up the first game, with many of the first sequel’s changes to the formula getting the axe and with an approach to setting and lore that clings much more closely to the first game. However, it’s not a bad follow-up in its own right, and some of its mechanical improvements are made in a similar spirit to Dark Souls 2 though with wholly different execution. I can’t say I like Dark Souls 3 as much as either of the previous two games, but it has some enjoyable aspects worth praising. I’ll try to highlight some of the differences dispassionately and then offer my own opinions on them, to the degree that they can be delineated. As an additional piece of context, I have not played Demon’s Souls or Bloodborne, though I am aware of the influence the latter game played on Dark Souls 3’s development, from its engine and graphics to player movement, and even some elements of its combat design. I’ll avoid further speculation on these aspects, and will be treating Dark Souls 3 in comparison only with the prior games in its series.
I recall thinking in 2017 upon finishing Dark Souls for the first time that it would be inevitable for its sequels to seek to increase in difficulty. While this is standard in many game series (e.g. Doom 2 quickly ramps up to meet Doom’s difficulty and only continues from there), there were two particular facts about the game that made it seem more likely. The first is that the game had achieved widespread popularity for its hardcore reputation (the original PC port came with the mantra “Prepare to Die” as its tagline), and the second is that, contradicting the first, there were actually many ways that the reputed difficulty of Dark Souls could be thoroughly circumvented through dominant degenerate strategies. The deliberate high-commitment combat that carried much of the experience could be stripped of many tactical considerations if the player adopted ranged weapons to pull enemies out of their aggro radius and bursted them down with magic spells, or observed that enemies were actually less of a threat in melee range when sticking close and parrying on reaction or simply circlestrafing around them for easy backstabs, both of which deliver high damage to the enemy and render the player invulnerable for a duration. The otherwise superb tuning of healing due to replenishment of the Estus flask at each bonfire checkpoint could be bypassed by kindling the bonfire for twice the healing, or simply farming Humanity drops to full heal at will. Aggressive bosses that required the player to internalize their patterns to find opportunities to attack and heal from mistakes could be nullified with summoned NPCs or players in co-op play to hold the boss’s attention while the other player wails on them for free hits. However, it should be noted that the combat strategies mentioned earlier still required some degree of skill and understanding from the player, and some of the other forms of assistance required the player to deliberately opt into them to decrease the difficulty with some (minor) drawbacks. Dark Souls was still a challenging and compelling experience on the whole, because the design of levels, encounters, and bosses can trip up optimal strategies and require the player to tailor their approach. Dark Souls’ core combat sees almost no additions to player mechanics from start to finish, so most of the difficulty curve and variety comes from the various ways in which the designers test the player with enemy encounters and ambushes, environmental hazards and traps, navigational challenges, and obstacles suited more to certain playstyles and character builds than others (e.g. players focusing on magic will have an easier time on Taurus Demon and Bell Gargoyles, but much more trouble with Capra Demon and Four Kings). So while there are some approaches to combat that dominate much of the game’s content, they don’t trivialize it entirely and require some adaptation from the player.
These issues deserve mention because many of them are addressed explicitly by both Dark Souls 2 and 3 in their changes to combat. As I mentioned in my DS2 critique, more focus was placed on group encounters against enemies that would aggressively chase the player to disincentivize ranged cheese and punish circlestrafing with special moves and better attack tracking. DS2 also overhauled the backstab, parry, and riposte mechanics so they would require predictive timing and more tactical awareness to successfully incorporate into combat. Many players failed to adapt to these changes and concluded that Dark Souls was always better served by 1v1 fights, ignoring how the first game had frequently used group encounters to challenge target prioritization and force tactical adaptation, as well as the many changes DS2 made to make multiple enemies more manageable than in the first game — arenas were larger and more maneuverable (avoiding the problems with DS1’s tight corridors where the player’s attacks bounce off walls while enemy attacks can go through them), and enemy patterns feature more gaps for counterattack (avoiding the problems in DS1 with multiple enemies layering on attacks with no rest period). DS2 focused less on mitigating the exploitable weaknesses of DS1’s combat and more on honing its strengths with tricky group encounters in arenas with unique twists while also expanding the player’s options for dealing with them. In my DS2 critique, I also laid out a defense for the game’s changes to the healing and humanity systems, which in my opinion lent a greater deal of long-term resource tension that, though not without issues, elevated the experience beyond a sequence of individual challenges in the absence of a more cohesively interconnected world.
Dark Souls 3 takes a decidedly different and more conservative approach to “fixing” the problems with Dark Souls’ combat. Each enemy is less predictable and more deadly, with the prevailing archetype featuring long chains of swift attacks with smaller windows for counterplay. The player is expected to dodge more often and read enemy movesets for gaps to time their attack swings and damage/stagger their opponent. Enemies frequently feature behaviors that counter specific strategies — some have shield bashes and swift punches to punish circlestrafing, most feature variation in attack timing to make dodging and parrying more difficult, and many are capable of retaliating against ranged attacks and aggro to the player in a wider radius. There are many minor changes to the mechanics and animations that generally improve the feel of combat, with more exaggerated swing motions and visceral hit effects that highlight the faster pace of combat and provide feedback to aid the player’s inputs. This is even evident in the game’s lock on camera, which will take a lower angle and precisely track the target’s center of mass to keep foes fully in view and aid in reading their attack tells, while the prior games took a stable higher angle that prioritized the player’s position relative to their environment. To go along with this general direction for combat, the player’s relationship with stamina has been greatly altered. In DS1, the player could just barely dodge roll 4 times at base stamina (EDIT: it’s more like 3 times, detailed findings here); in DS2, the player could dodge roll 3 times; in DS3 they can dodge roll 6 times. I haven’t put the time in to quantify it across the spectrum, but weapon attacks generally seem to cost less stamina as well, and an extremely cursory review of shields suggests that shields take less stamina damage when blocking. While the base stamina regeneration speed in DS3 is proportionally on par with the prior games, DS1 reduces the player’s stamina regeneration with each piece of heavy armor equipped and at certain equip load thresholds, while DS2’s stamina regeneration decreases linearly with equip load. Additionally, lower stamina costs mean that stamina increases from Endurance are less essential for most builds, so the same base stamina regeneration goes much further proportionally in DS3 (more on this later). The result is a combat system that puts less emphasis on strategic stamina use and a greater focus on effectively timing dodges and weaving in attacks, which requires split-second reads, decisions, and inputs and is thus more demanding on a mechanical level.
Dark Souls 3’s combat does not devolve into a timing minigame, however, as there are still strategic considerations in combat. Group encounters are still present and more threatening than ever with the changes to enemy behaviors, arena geometry can impose limitations on movement and workable attack swings, and the player has a number of different weapon types with variations within type at their disposal. While DS2 arguably has greater build diversity when it comes to character upgrades and equipment (more on this later), DS3 puts a good deal of effort into making each weapon unique beyond variations in damage type/range/speed, with many weapons within each type featuring different attack animations and weapon arts which can be unleashed at the cost of the player’s mana. A player comfortable with their particular weapon’s moveset can learn when to use one-handed sweeping horizontal attacks and when to switch to two-handed vertical slashes for greater damage or when to charge up a weapon art to decisively dispatch their foes. I focused on low-commitment fast-attacking weapons during my playthrough (Estoc and Sellsword Twinblades), but I experimented with other weapons and observed several friends doing concurrent playthroughs with straight swords, great swords, katanas, and more seeing a lot of variation in effectiveness and combat style across and within weapon types. While it would initially seem that faster weapons would have an innate advantage due to the faster pace of combat with smaller openings in enemy attack windows, it should be noted that enemies and even many bosses can be staggered by heavier weapons, making them vulnerable to subsequent hits for a short duration. I can’t comment much on balance between weapon types, though it appears that straight swords offer the best tradeoff between speed, range, damage, and stamina commitment, with other weapons competing to provide some other utility to the table (such as coverage, stagger, counter damage, bleed/poison debuffs, and so on).
The various weapons prompt a discussion of Dark Souls 3’s RPG systems, which are broadly similar to the first game, but with some notable differences. Gone are the useless Resistance stat from DS1 and its mandatory hybrid with agility in DS2’s Adaptibility stat, replaced with a Luck stat that affects item drop rate and also increases the application speed of bleed and poison on opponents. Endurance and Vitality maintain their split from DS2, with the former affecting stamina and the latter affecting physical damage resistance and equip load. While I thought this split was very appropriate in DS2 as stamina and equip load were both highly impactful in that game, it’s perhaps the last thing I would have maintained going into DS3. Base stamina is sufficient for even the most frenzied bosses (I found my Assassin’s starting Endurance of 11 plus one needless upgrade provided more than enough stamina for Pontiff Sulyvahn), and equip load has been rendered more pointless than ever by changes to rolling and armor alike. In DS1, rolling was split into tiers, with light rolls granting 13 invincibility frames below 25% equip load, medium rolls granting 11 i-Frames between 25-50% equip load, and so-called “fat rolls” granting only 9 i-Frames above 50%, with speed and distance covered dropping in a further discretized fashion (DS2 roll distance scaled linearly with equip load, but i-Frames were controversially based on a derived Agility stat). In DS3, light and medium rolls share 13 i-Frames with the 30% breakpoint only determining roll speed and distance in a binary fashion, while fat rolling above 70% equip load grants only 11 i-Frames. Hence, it is optimal to stay at 69.9% equip load at all times, giving questionable benefit to increasing Vitality except to wear heavier armor. However, user testing has revealed that simply having a piece of armor in each slot is more impactful than the actual protection each provides (correlated with weight). With the importance of the player’s stamina pool and equip load so reduced, recombining them into one stat would be sensible for players looking to use heavier gear. The player is likely to increase Vigor up to its soft cap of 27 for large bonuses to health, and will be choosing between Strength and Dexterity for physical weapons and Intelligence (for sorceries and pyromancies), Faith (for miracles and pyromancies), and Attunement (for mana and spell slots). The return of the mana bar from Demon’s Souls is great in concept, making increases to Attunement more granular and theoretically creating a nice balance for magic users in requiring them to manage their usage across spells and allot some of their estus flasks towards mana regeneration. However, as someone who tends to play a DEX/INT hybrid, magic in DS3 left quite a lot to be desired compared to the prior games. INT and FTH must be upgraded to a soft cap of 60 for optimal use of sorceries and miracles respectively (40/40 for Pyromancies), while STR and DEX bonuses drop off sharply after 40 (27 in STR if two-handed). I used several utility spells throughout my playthrough (Spook combines silent running and fall damage protection for effective stealth play with further utility available with Hidden Body, and Magic Weapon and its improved forms add some extra damage), but found most of the offensive spells I tried fairly weak throughout my investment from 15 to 30 INT on the side, and there were fewer spells overall than in DS2. Dedicated spellcasters will likely have a fairly rough time in the early parts of the game, as it takes a lot of stat investment and specific ring choices to deal effective damage with magic except against enemies with specific weaknesses. Put together, I’d argue that most builds should be focused on STR/DEX (with some niche options for bleed/poison builds focused on LCK) with steady increases in VGR to keep up with the game’s progression in damage and healing, with most other stats being wholly optional until they’ve reached the soft caps. Some of the starting classes offer distinct ways to play the early game with their starting equipment — the Knight is probably the most potent STR/DEX start with a good sword, shield, armor set, and mix of stats, but the Warrior makes a good case for a STR-focused character, the Mercenary starts with twinblades for DEX users, the Assassin is a DEX/INT hybrid adept at parrying and stealth tactics, and the Pyromancer is probably the best casting start. On the weaker side, the Sorcerer and Cleric seem undertuned for INT and FTH given the low potency of magic early on, the Thief is a bit of an outlier focused on LCK, and I don’t know who the Herald class is supposed to be for (hybrid between quality and faith, I suppose). I was able to follow a simple template with little need for adaptation from start to finish, but at least the initial choice has some variety.
There are several other changes to mechanics and systems worth noting. Parrying has a startup delay depending on the parry implement like in DS2 and thus requires prediction rather than pure reaction, but riposting is back to DS1’s standard where no special timing or decision making is required and the player is fully immune for the duration. Also returning from DS2 is the guard break riposte, in which the player can perform a critical attack after dealing enough damage to an enemy’s shield to stagger them. Backstabbing at first appears to work like DS1 where backstabs were guaranteed when attacking from a certain angle, but actually functions more like DS2 where attacking an enemy from behind triggers an animation (a punch in DS2, the actual stab in DS3) that will execute the backstab only if the enemy remains in position, at which point the player and enemy will enter a paired animation. Poise no longer grants passive stagger resistance as in prior games, but rather increases hyperarmor durability during heavy weapon attacks, which apparently took the community months to figure out. Dual wielding is essentially reverted to DS1’s limited state, with DS2’s power stance replaced with distinct paired weapons which offer a unique dual moveset when two-handed. Boss souls can be directly traded for weapons like in DS2 rather than requiring a fully upgraded weapon like in DS1, which is a definite improvement. Damage scaling is based on weapon base damage like in DS1 rather than innate player stats as in DS2, which is a wash overall but can make comparing weapons with similar scaling slightly less obvious. Weapon durability refreshes at bonfires like DS2 but degrades so slowly that it’s even more pointless than DS1, which I’ve previously argued was at best an “atmospheric” system that would only punish players who were ignorant or negligent of its effects and got stuck in Blighttown with a broken sword. DS2’s progressive hollowing system on death with up to 50% reduction to maximum health is gone, replaced with embering, which offers a binary bonus of 30% to maximum health when defeating a boss or using a rare item as well as a full heal which can be used only once per life (removing the degenerate grinding for humanity healing in DS1). Estus Flask Shards and Undead Bone Shards (i.e. Sublime Bone Dusts) return from DS2, increasing the number of flasks and their healing value respectively, leading to more gradual increases in healing potential than DS1’s kindling system and rare healing value increases from Fire Keeper Souls. In principle, DS3 features the best healing system in the series with the lowest potential for cheese, though it could be argued that there are too many upgrades to healing as a question of difficulty tuning over gauntlets between checkpoints, which do not consistently increase in length over the course of the game.
I can finally get onto the meat of the game’s content, its level design and bosses. I’ve heard many argue that these are the best in the series and I’d agree that’s true for bosses, but I was not terribly impressed with the level design overall. It’s all no worse than decent (DS1 had a handful of bad levels and some in DS2 were underwhelming), but left much to be desired. The first proper level is High Wall of Lothric, which is overall a good showing with some clever encounter setups that teach the players the basics of target prioritization and aggro against various enemy types such as basic hollows, more frantic imp enemies, and Lothric knights as well as offering several looping paths to explore and shortcuts to unlock. Undead Settlement is perhaps a better introduction to these principles, offering a ton of distinct areas to explore, enemies in a variety of open and closed spaces both in view and ready to ambush the player, and various paths and shortcuts that lead to the next level as well as branching out into optional challenges like the fire demon and the Greatwood boss. Road of Sacrifices starts off pretty bland with a simplistic path dotted with transforming bird enemies, but it soon opens up into an area featuring many different enemy types mixed together with distinct sections to explore, from the tangled tree roots patrolled by pike hollows, the corners guarded by crucified rushers, the swamp with marauding crabs, and the inner ruins crawling with standard melee hollows and sorcerers. It also features the first real fork in the road leading to either Cathedral of the Deep beyond the Crystal Sage boss, or Farron Keep beyond some tough armored foes. I first did the latter and found it to be a slog in most senses of the word. It’s the less interesting part of Blighttown (the poison swamp) but three sizes larger with objectives dotted around to require the player to visit a sizeable chunk of it. Each zone is populated by pockets of different enemy types, like goat demons of various shapes and sizes, petrifying basilisks, and uncountably many slugs. There’s plenty to explore, but it can be quite tedious as there aren’t many landmarks to anchor oneself and the poison damage is so neutered from prior games that the most painless way to go through the level is to just get poisoned and simply treat it as an estus tax. The level at least ends with some interesting infighting the player can observe between some Darkwraiths and goat demons, a precursor to the excellent Abyss Watchers boss. Cathedral of the Deep comes next, and while I’ve heard plenty of praise for the level I don’t really get the hype. The approach is a quick sprint through infinitely spawning waves of mostly harmless zombies, and the inside offers little more than some basic knight encounters in side rooms and two giants to fight while wading through muck. The outer wall that links these two sections was legitimately the hardest section in the game for me, as it was very difficult for me to hit the imps dropping down from above with my weapons and I did not realize that the bleeder worms from the elite zombies could be removed with a torch, making it very deadly to be hit by them even once during an attempt. I found the shortcut to the outer wall to be no faster and in fact more dangerous than the first path due to the elite zombies, while the shortcuts from the main bonfire to the inside were very predictable. From here I returned to the other path to proceed to the Catacombs of Carthus, which features the theming of DS1’s Catacombs alongside the traps of Sen’s Fortress but the complex geometry and tricky encounters of neither. Plus the wheel skeletons have been completely declawed.
Irithyll of the Boreal Valley is visually interesting but serves mostly as a series of gauntlets against various aggressive enemies, which although good is disappointing for the potential that a city environment could have had for navigational challenges. This branches into a literal rehash of Anor Londo, complete with a less bullshit silver knight archer segment in the beginning but an even more underwhelming interior than the original with nothing but a few casters, slimes, and an annoying miniboss to open a shortcut to the boss that’s only marginally faster. The other path leads to Irithyll Dungeon, which is one of my favorite levels for its tricky enemy placement, the punishing health reduction gimmick of the jailers, compelling shortcut design, and spooky atmosphere. Profaned Capital seems incomplete, but has a bit of nice verticality with a treacherous toxic swamp below and I enjoy that it loops back into separate part of Irithyll Dungeon (this is the only time the game attempts any area interconnectivity). Lothric Castle was a major disappointment, with a handful of enemies between bonfires in close proximity and two dragons guarding a bridge that simultaneously die from a single hit to one of their big toes. The Grand Archives was my other favorite level despite rehashing the same concept from DS1, featuring tons of vertical exploration, a mix of melee and ranged foes from obscured angles alongside the hazard of the cursing hands, and a great reuse of the Crystal Sage as a teleporting pest to pelt you with spells as you progress upwards while dealing with other enemies, perfecting the idea of the Channeler in the original Duke’s Archives. There could have been a bit more of a puzzle element like the original’s rotating staircases (many staircases are conspicuously on wheels despite being immobile), but the level gets full marks for creative geometry and clever encounters.
There are some optional levels branching off of the main path as well — Consumed King’s Gardens is pretty lame as yet another toxic swamp, this time filled with the aggravating abyssal monsters; Untended Graves is a dull rehash of the tutorial level; Archdragon Peak is a nice surprise with branching rooms and corridors with plenty of ambushes against serpent-men that can quickly overwhelm and a few sections centered around dodging rolling rock lizards and wyvern fire breath; Smouldering Lake has a cool aesthetic but is mostly more of the same rectangular Catacombs mazes with some tanky pyromancers and goat demons. The general theme is that there are some open-ended levels focused on navigation and exploration (High Wall of Lothric, Road of Sacrifices, Farron Keep, Profaned Capital) and other more linear levels focused on challenging enemy encounters (Cathedral of the Deep, Catacombs of Carthus, Irithyll, Anor Londo, Lothric Castle), but only a few levels that notably combine the two (Undead Settlement, Irithyll Dungeon, Grand Archives). Compared to the complex designs and devious ambushes of the prior games and given the amount of derivative concepts or outright rehashes, I found most levels somewhat forgettable.
My negativity with the level design is not helped by the highly linear progression of environments, with almost no attempt at any kind of world interconnectivity like DS1 and a meager amount of branching compared to the nonlinearity of DS2. While in the prior two games I felt like I was forging my own path through the world, in DS3 I felt like I was mostly following a script where any fork in the road would inevitably lead to a dead end or the obvious next step in the critical path. I don’t have anything against games with more linear structures, but it’s a shame coming from the prior games as I don’t feel much has been gained from it. Linearity gives the designer tighter control over the player character’s strength, with a steady progression of NPC vendors to meet and bring back to Firelink as well as items to expand their inventories, and a very obvious breakpoint for weapon upgrades with later levels throwing lesser titanite at the player like candy once the next rung of ore has been unlocked. This ensures that no player can be left behind by missing something important, but made the experience of exploring feel more rote to me, as I never stumbled on anything surprising during my playthrough and didn’t feel much connection to the set of NPCs I met along the way. DS2 perhaps took this too far with a critical path that was easy to lose track of and key items that could be glossed over entirely, but this also made me feel more personally involved in the journey.
Thankfully, Dark Souls 3 has one last major portion of content that did not disappoint in the slightest. While DS2’s Ruin Sentinels and DS1’s Artorias are still my favorite bosses in the series, it’s not hard to argue that DS3 has the best bosses overall. Related to my original conjecture for difficulty going forward from DS1, I recall thinking after completing the Artorias of the Abyss DLC that I wasn’t sure how future games would increase the mechanical challenge of bosses beyond the standard set there without committing to an ever more aggressive style of attacks that required more precise timing and forethought. While DS2’s bosses went a fairly different direction focused more on strategic management of stamina, arena movement, and multiple foes, DS3 proves that I was basically right about the direction, but wrong about the potential that was still there to be explored. In line with its changes to the pace of combat, the majority of DS3’s bosses are highly aggressive and require both swift reactions and proactive decisions about when to strike and recover, and require special adaptation to each boss’ unique threats. Many bosses feature similar attacks with variable telegraphs, which has been cited as a source of unfairness, but I actually think it’s a great way to make movement more of an important tool in dodging attacks than pure reaction. Another interesting point is that some bosses have quick follow-up attacks that can’t be chain dodged unless you dodge the first attack early enough, which is an interesting way to test the player’s reads for entire attack strings instead of treating each attack separately. Each boss has its own rhythm of attacks to be learned, positioning to be mastered, and weaknesses to be conquered.
Iudex Gundyr is a filter for new players and a wake up call to Souls veterans with surprising follow up attacks and a second phase that explodes into a writhing abyssal mass (which is frankly never fun to fight when it shows up in the game, as it is rather difficult to read its moves). Vordt of the Boreal Valley can catch the player off guard with charging bull rush attacks but is dispatched fairly easily by staying under its legs. The Crystal Sage is built around teleporting gimmick with spells that threaten the player at various ranges and its final phase requires the player to quickly assess the situation and take out each wizard in a sequence of their choosing based on location and the threat their spell poses. The Abyss Watchers is probably my favorite fight of the bunch, with a unique twist on multiple combatants who will actually battle one another and allow the player to selectively intervene to turn the tides in their favor, and a simple but deadly duel in the second phase. Deacons of the Deep features a constantly respawning mob with the boss healthbar trading between members of the crowd, with lots of variables to manage between various casters that escalate over the fight and and sturdier enemies blocking the way to the main target. High Lord Wolnir was probably the least interesting boss, with dark fog that killed me twice before I understood what was going on but attacks that I dodged easily as I waited for him to bring his arm back down for minutes at a time on my successful attempt. Pontiff Sulyvahn is apparently a sharp difficulty spike for most, but I consistently parried his leaping attack and defeated him in only a few attempts after some initial observation of his moveset. His attack strings are long and unforgiving, but most can be circumvented by effective movement rather than pure dodging, and his second phase is actually more predictable and offers lots of room for counterplay. Aldrich is essentially a harder version of the Crystal Sage with more dangerous spells and a second phase that requires managing their aftereffects between teleports. Yhorm is built around a serviceable gimmick, but made for a fun impromptu cooperation with an NPC. Dancer has a style of attacking with slow telegraphs and smooth motions that makes for a very unique rhythm and there are some long attack strings in the second phase. Dragonslayer Armour is a traditional duel against a humanoid foe who must be read carefully to avoid getting caught out, and the Twin Princes put a twist on this kind of fight with attack chains are interrupted by teleports and a phase 2 that adds ranged spells and requires the player to damage the boss’ backside or burst the boss down repeatedly. Soul of Cinder can be an uneven challenge as it will randomly select different forms during its first phase (of which the sword and mage form were the easiest to deal with, while the spear and curved sword forms offered little counterplay), while the phase 2 rehashes Gwyn’s moveset but with the addition of a few lightning moves and a flurry of attacks that can juggle the player for near or all of their life like Manus’ roar slams. The optional bosses were largely forgettable, with the challenge of the Greatwood mostly coming from not knowing what parts of it are vulnerable and Oceiros going down before I really learned his moveset. The two bosses of Archdragon Peak were a bit better — the Ancient Wyvern is pretty enjoyable as a glorified level gimmick requiring the player to get through groups of enemies and make their way to a perch from which they can perform a plunging attack, and the Nameless King is a fairly mundane fight with a wyvern followed by a standard duel with a humanoid opponent. Champion Gundyr was a good twist on the first boss, with a phase 2 that requires careful attention to tells for halberd swipes with wide follow through and swift kicks and punches alike. Overall the boss roster is quite stellar with a lot of challenging variation and memorable concepts, and was the main factor in my enjoyment of the game.
While I’ve never been much for the story of the Souls games, I have enjoyed the original setting and atmosphere of the prior titles, which managed to set themselves apart with inventive and fantastical locations. I’d go as far as to say that this is something I liked better about Dark Souls 2, as its war-torn battlements and sweeping vistas of Drangleic had a nostalgic vibe that I appreciated a bit more than the bleak depiction of the larger than life world of Lordran. Dark Souls 3 hews much closer to the first game, borrowing entire locations and mashing together a few of their concepts with a general approach to visuals that’s less colorful and more densely detailed. The cluttered and largely monochromatic visuals don’t appeal to me, nor do the constant callbacks to DS1’s lore and characters, which is at best a nonfactor and at worst a grating reminder of the backlash faced by DS2. I don’t think this bears significantly on my enjoyment, as I view these games primarily in terms of their gameplay, but I thought it worth noting.
Dark Souls 3 is a lateral move from Dark Souls 2, both of which sought to improve upon the first game’s formula in different ways. It succeeds in offering a more mechanically intensive game focused on raw combat, particularly against diverse and challenging bosses, but the game’s environments are often mundane and the paths between them constrain the player’s adventure to a linear sequence. I can see what people value in its focus on polished combat mechanics, but the more deliberate strategic flow of combat in the prior two games endear me more to them, as does the agency the player is given to explore the world and deal with the numerous obstacles within them. Dark Souls 3 is the most polished and mechanically challenging entry in the series, but scraps many of its predecessor’s innovations and borrows heavily from the first Dark Souls for a more stripped down experience. It’s a good effort, though not how I would have personally liked the series to have concluded.
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