Ahh the Souls series, my old mistress. We've had some good times. I've given you money, and you've whipped me and told me what a naughty boy I am until you made me cry. But after its over, I leave with smug satisfaction after what we've done while feeling spent and exhausted.... wait, what am I talking about again?.. Er, never mind..
Look, you all know how this is gonna go. I've been an avid advocate of the Souls series since Demon's Souls waaaay back in the day. It's clearly one of my favorites of all time. Even when I find fault in it, it still leaves me satisfied and wanting more. Now, I can agree that Dark Souls II and Bloodborne were not up to the original Dark Souls or Demon's Souls pedigree, but they were still very good. I've heard rumblings that this might be the final chapter of the Souls series, so is it an adequate swan song? Let's find out.....
Look, you all know how this is gonna go. I've been an avid advocate of the Souls series since Demon's Souls waaaay back in the day. It's clearly one of my favorites of all time. Even when I find fault in it, it still leaves me satisfied and wanting more. Now, I can agree that Dark Souls II and Bloodborne were not up to the original Dark Souls or Demon's Souls pedigree, but they were still very good. I've heard rumblings that this might be the final chapter of the Souls series, so is it an adequate swan song? Let's find out.....
DARK SOULS III:(PS4)
Do I even want to bother trying to figure out what the hell the Dark Souls story is? Alright, so Dark Souls III takes place in a land called Lotheric, a kingdom that appears to be tied to the previous Souls titles and appears to be tied to the ages of fire/dark (depending on what you chose in the first game, I think).
In this realm, fire is linked by 5 dead Lords of Cinder. When the strength of fire begins to a fade, a bell in Lotheric begins to chime causing the Lords of Cinder to rise from their grave and abandon their thrones. The chime also awakens weaker "unkindled ash" who are essentially weaker mortals (like you), and it is up to them to try to somehow find the strength to return the Lords to the thrones and re-link the fire.
The intro cinematic ends with your created character arising from their grave and looking ahead to the Firelink shrine, where your adventure begins.
Ok so first off? For as much as I love these games, I have to call a spade a spade here: The Dark Souls stories kinda suck. I have played through all of these games multiple times and every time I still have no idea what the hell is going on. Just watch the intro cinematic above, Its literally just pointless fantasy speechifying. It's like it literally doesn't mean anything nor does it really give you any explanation. Demon's Souls at the very least had a loosely coherent plotline. But Dark Souls gets more muddied with every iteration.
I will say to the credit of their storytelling, is they do a wonderful job of making me interested in the NPCs despite how little they explain. With each passing I get a little more context to a character, and I have to seek them out to proceed along, buy a little more from them, get them that one trinket that opens up things a little more. I almost never complete a quest line in my first run, and learn that I missed so much every time I do, its just an added bonus of motivation during the runs of the these games.
So from a control perspective, if you have played one Souls game you have played them all. They still have the shoulder/trigger combat system, still use the dpad for quick inventory, still no pause, etc, etc. From Software pretty much nailed on the core mechanics of the game when they created it in demons souls, and aside from a couple of little subtle tweaks (like giving weapons a specialty move) if you have played any of the other ones then there isn't going to be a lot new here. They still seem determined to make the jump button L3 which is is still stupid, though.
But I have to say for this type of game? This is probably the most perfect control scheme I have ever used. I might have belabored this point in one of the previous games but it still really holds true today for me. I don't think I have played a game where it used every single button on the controller but at the same time doesn't feel like its excessive or wasted. Everything has a purpose, and it all makes sense intuitively to me. Maybe less so for someone who doesn't game as often or is fluid with current day controllers, but this control scheme I don't think gets the praise is deserves. It is pretty much perfect.
Character customization is back to form in its usual "we provided sliders to take your basic character from ugly to OMG what the fuck happened?!" It continues to baffle me that game with such amazingly pretty visuals and attention to detail on the surrounding and armor and weapons, has possibly one of the worst character generators in history. The sliders never seem like they do anything, and when they do you just look maimed and disfigured. I want my character to be a lovely lady, and god damn it From Software you are not helping me on that front. They added a covenant where you can change it late game if you are so horrendous you can't take it, if that is any consolation.
When referring to pretty much everything else that is in Dark Souls III, I have frequently been using the phrase "an amalgamation of the Souls series". As mentioned prior I've heard this might be one of the last of this series they are putting out, so it makes sense to say that it was a smart idea to take the best ideas from the 4 games that have come before it and put them together in one really positive experience, so you will probably hear a good number of comparisons from this point forward.
First and foremost, thank god we have brought back the massive customization of the traditional Souls games. Don't get me wrong, I loved Bloodborne but only having so many weapon choices that all did functionally the same thing was kinda boring. Have a lack of magic really meant I could only play the game one way, and without the weight mechanics there was no penalty to tank up your armor. That's all gone and we've gone back to the Dark Souls II style of stat building. So now if you decide to do a Dex build over a strength build, or perhaps an Intelligence or Faith build you now have some viable options.
And MAN do you. Flipping through the Dark Souls III wiki is showing me that you have a whole slew of new weapons and armor to choose from, but on top of that it seems that a very large selection of weapons or armors that appeared in a Souls game make an appearance here as well. So the number of weapon possibilities this time around is staggering, and from a storytelling perspective, it gives you a sense that all of these varied Dark Souls worlds might even be connected, (More on this later). Sadly though, the Black Witch set from Dark Souls II doesn't return so Lady Velfir will have to go without heels this time. (Don't judge me.)
I will say though that armor in this game seems to be next to useless. Perhaps this is something that will be fixed in later updates but tanking up my heaviest armor doesn't seem to provide any more defense than wearing the lightest stuff I have available. All it does is shorten my dodge roll, so I see little reason to do it. Also, its been discovered that the poise mechanic is actually currently turned off in the game, and they are banning players who find out how to turn it on. Poise is basically your ability to retain your stance while taking hits. I have no idea why this would be turned off, its one of the major advantages to heavy armor. Hopefully this is fixed soon.
Exploring the world seems like a merging of most of the franchise. When you first start the game you wander a small distance before you are brought to the firelink shrine, which is suspiciously close how the Abyss looked in Demon's Souls complete with firekeeper in black dress with a mask that blinds her eyes (much like Demon's lady in black). From here you can use the bonfire to teleport to specific areas like Dark Souls 2. But these aren't as linear going out like that game was, because the maps for each are are fairly large, most of them nonlinear with twists and shortcuts to bring you back to the start or open you to different areas. So while you can't do one massive circular lap of the entire map, you can do it in several areas.
Interestingly enough, its the maps and levels of this game that give me a sinking suspicion that the world of all the games are in some way connected. For example, one specific area I don't want to spoil comes directly from Dark Souls, although time had been unkind to it. Another area, while not exactly the same seems remarkably similar to the prison from Demon Souls. Also, there is a specific ring called the hunters ring that features a masked person with a hat, so there is your Bloodborne connection. Since Dark Souls lore is murky at best, you will have to draw your own connections, but I have reason to believe that this is all one universe.
Since we have shifted back to the Souls series, the boss design has shifted more back to the medieval aesthetic. It's not the cavalcade of "dudes in armor" that Dark Souls II was, and its certainly not range of tattered looking beasts like in Bloodborne. But we seem to have a pretty decent mix of monsters and humanoid type characters for the main bosses as well as a few dragons and demons. The same "From Software" boss rule applies: the closer they are to your size, the more dangerous they are. I felt the Bloodborne bosses were cooler looking, but they do enough with the humanoids of Dark Souls 3 to make each fight feel different.
Let's talk online for a minute. We all know that I hate it sure, but in the Souls you really aren't playing the game if you are playing it offline. The covenant system is back so you can choose your alliances for weather you want to be summoned to help or invade to grief. But instead of having to travel to each location to join or leave you are given a series of banners or trinkets that you can switch on the fly whenever the mood strikes you, so there is no penalty from switching covenants and allows you to reap the rewards of all of them.
So if you are like me, an earnest and helpful Sunbro, all you do is slap on your little sun banner on and you are in the sunlight covenant. You drop your gold soul sign and get teleported to someone's game, help fight the boss, and collect your sunlight medal when you win. But then you can chose to switch to the Blue Sentinels as you explore, so if some poor schmuck gets invaded you can be whisked away to help them fend off their invader. You only need to go to your covenant's alter when you want to cash in. Since this Souls seems to be selling more than any other copy, it has been incredibly easy to find summoning help this time around.
But say you don't want random help? No worries because Dark Souls III brought back the password system they implemented from Bloodborne so all you have to do is put in a password of your choosing and have a friend do so too, and then your level is scaled to help them take down an area or boss. And color me surprised because this is the first iteration of the game that actually allows players to voice chat with each other. This is something they used to kick you out of the game for in older iterations of the game. It seems to struggle in the first area, but otherwise I've had little issue getting it to work.
In this realm, fire is linked by 5 dead Lords of Cinder. When the strength of fire begins to a fade, a bell in Lotheric begins to chime causing the Lords of Cinder to rise from their grave and abandon their thrones. The chime also awakens weaker "unkindled ash" who are essentially weaker mortals (like you), and it is up to them to try to somehow find the strength to return the Lords to the thrones and re-link the fire.
The intro cinematic ends with your created character arising from their grave and looking ahead to the Firelink shrine, where your adventure begins.
I will say to the credit of their storytelling, is they do a wonderful job of making me interested in the NPCs despite how little they explain. With each passing I get a little more context to a character, and I have to seek them out to proceed along, buy a little more from them, get them that one trinket that opens up things a little more. I almost never complete a quest line in my first run, and learn that I missed so much every time I do, its just an added bonus of motivation during the runs of the these games.
 |
| Apparently, story unlocks as you buy things from NPCs as well. |
So from a control perspective, if you have played one Souls game you have played them all. They still have the shoulder/trigger combat system, still use the dpad for quick inventory, still no pause, etc, etc. From Software pretty much nailed on the core mechanics of the game when they created it in demons souls, and aside from a couple of little subtle tweaks (like giving weapons a specialty move) if you have played any of the other ones then there isn't going to be a lot new here. They still seem determined to make the jump button L3 which is is still stupid, though.
But I have to say for this type of game? This is probably the most perfect control scheme I have ever used. I might have belabored this point in one of the previous games but it still really holds true today for me. I don't think I have played a game where it used every single button on the controller but at the same time doesn't feel like its excessive or wasted. Everything has a purpose, and it all makes sense intuitively to me. Maybe less so for someone who doesn't game as often or is fluid with current day controllers, but this control scheme I don't think gets the praise is deserves. It is pretty much perfect.
 |
| As usual, almost every enemy can put you down. |
Character customization is back to form in its usual "we provided sliders to take your basic character from ugly to OMG what the fuck happened?!" It continues to baffle me that game with such amazingly pretty visuals and attention to detail on the surrounding and armor and weapons, has possibly one of the worst character generators in history. The sliders never seem like they do anything, and when they do you just look maimed and disfigured. I want my character to be a lovely lady, and god damn it From Software you are not helping me on that front. They added a covenant where you can change it late game if you are so horrendous you can't take it, if that is any consolation.
When referring to pretty much everything else that is in Dark Souls III, I have frequently been using the phrase "an amalgamation of the Souls series". As mentioned prior I've heard this might be one of the last of this series they are putting out, so it makes sense to say that it was a smart idea to take the best ideas from the 4 games that have come before it and put them together in one really positive experience, so you will probably hear a good number of comparisons from this point forward.
 |
| You take the Fire Gem. You can take something else too, if you are stupid. |
First and foremost, thank god we have brought back the massive customization of the traditional Souls games. Don't get me wrong, I loved Bloodborne but only having so many weapon choices that all did functionally the same thing was kinda boring. Have a lack of magic really meant I could only play the game one way, and without the weight mechanics there was no penalty to tank up your armor. That's all gone and we've gone back to the Dark Souls II style of stat building. So now if you decide to do a Dex build over a strength build, or perhaps an Intelligence or Faith build you now have some viable options.
And MAN do you. Flipping through the Dark Souls III wiki is showing me that you have a whole slew of new weapons and armor to choose from, but on top of that it seems that a very large selection of weapons or armors that appeared in a Souls game make an appearance here as well. So the number of weapon possibilities this time around is staggering, and from a storytelling perspective, it gives you a sense that all of these varied Dark Souls worlds might even be connected, (More on this later). Sadly though, the Black Witch set from Dark Souls II doesn't return so Lady Velfir will have to go without heels this time. (Don't judge me.)
I will say though that armor in this game seems to be next to useless. Perhaps this is something that will be fixed in later updates but tanking up my heaviest armor doesn't seem to provide any more defense than wearing the lightest stuff I have available. All it does is shorten my dodge roll, so I see little reason to do it. Also, its been discovered that the poise mechanic is actually currently turned off in the game, and they are banning players who find out how to turn it on. Poise is basically your ability to retain your stance while taking hits. I have no idea why this would be turned off, its one of the major advantages to heavy armor. Hopefully this is fixed soon.
Exploring the world seems like a merging of most of the franchise. When you first start the game you wander a small distance before you are brought to the firelink shrine, which is suspiciously close how the Abyss looked in Demon's Souls complete with firekeeper in black dress with a mask that blinds her eyes (much like Demon's lady in black). From here you can use the bonfire to teleport to specific areas like Dark Souls 2. But these aren't as linear going out like that game was, because the maps for each are are fairly large, most of them nonlinear with twists and shortcuts to bring you back to the start or open you to different areas. So while you can't do one massive circular lap of the entire map, you can do it in several areas.
Interestingly enough, its the maps and levels of this game that give me a sinking suspicion that the world of all the games are in some way connected. For example, one specific area I don't want to spoil comes directly from Dark Souls, although time had been unkind to it. Another area, while not exactly the same seems remarkably similar to the prison from Demon Souls. Also, there is a specific ring called the hunters ring that features a masked person with a hat, so there is your Bloodborne connection. Since Dark Souls lore is murky at best, you will have to draw your own connections, but I have reason to believe that this is all one universe.
Since we have shifted back to the Souls series, the boss design has shifted more back to the medieval aesthetic. It's not the cavalcade of "dudes in armor" that Dark Souls II was, and its certainly not range of tattered looking beasts like in Bloodborne. But we seem to have a pretty decent mix of monsters and humanoid type characters for the main bosses as well as a few dragons and demons. The same "From Software" boss rule applies: the closer they are to your size, the more dangerous they are. I felt the Bloodborne bosses were cooler looking, but they do enough with the humanoids of Dark Souls 3 to make each fight feel different.
 |
| With each helper you summon, bosses get more HP. So choose how many allies wisely. |
Let's talk online for a minute. We all know that I hate it sure, but in the Souls you really aren't playing the game if you are playing it offline. The covenant system is back so you can choose your alliances for weather you want to be summoned to help or invade to grief. But instead of having to travel to each location to join or leave you are given a series of banners or trinkets that you can switch on the fly whenever the mood strikes you, so there is no penalty from switching covenants and allows you to reap the rewards of all of them.
So if you are like me, an earnest and helpful Sunbro, all you do is slap on your little sun banner on and you are in the sunlight covenant. You drop your gold soul sign and get teleported to someone's game, help fight the boss, and collect your sunlight medal when you win. But then you can chose to switch to the Blue Sentinels as you explore, so if some poor schmuck gets invaded you can be whisked away to help them fend off their invader. You only need to go to your covenant's alter when you want to cash in. Since this Souls seems to be selling more than any other copy, it has been incredibly easy to find summoning help this time around.
But say you don't want random help? No worries because Dark Souls III brought back the password system they implemented from Bloodborne so all you have to do is put in a password of your choosing and have a friend do so too, and then your level is scaled to help them take down an area or boss. And color me surprised because this is the first iteration of the game that actually allows players to voice chat with each other. This is something they used to kick you out of the game for in older iterations of the game. It seems to struggle in the first area, but otherwise I've had little issue getting it to work.
My problem is invaders. One, they are horrible people. All of them. Two, the PVP in Dark Souls III is still an endless smorgasbord of shit covered dicks. Why? because after close to 5 iterations of the game they still don't have the latency issues fixed. So when I get notice that Doucheface McButtsniffer invaded my game, I have to make a dash back to the bonfire and wait for them to kill me. Don't try to fight, it's pointless. You will be circling in your fight looking for an ample shot to strike, you'll dive in and swing five or six clean hits and have nothing happen as they roll harmlessly away during the 3rd swing.
Then when they scramble they will attack the empty air about 3 or 4 body lengths away, and you will take 3 or 4 hits before you realize their complete misses are actually damaging you. Too late, you are dead. This is literally how every single invade that has happened to me has gone. I understand there is a fervent PVP community in the Souls games, but I have no fucking clue how they operate because the PVP combat in these games its a lag ridden mess. Fuck it.
Worse yet, on the PC version of the game, there is rampant cheating taking place with people modding their characters with items they shouldn't have and trouncing other online players. And even worse giving players who aren't modding their game modded weapons which are getting innocent players flags for cheating and soft bans. PC players may get to brag about how much better games look on their expensive gaming rigs, but you don't hear console players complaining about rampant cheating and banning.
If I am looking at this game honestly, you can really see how the devs went about their approach in developing this game. They went back and looked out their legacy of work as a whole, looked at what worked, what didn't, looked at what people liked, and what people wanted. If this was going to be the last Souls game to be released obviously they wanted to really nail it. For the most part I feel that they succeed on that front. It's everything I want in a souls game.
But I wouldn't call it the best. I would say that Dark Souls III is a return to form. They went back to worked before, kept the elements people liked and got rid of some that they didn't. It provided a long fulfilling experience with lots of secrets to unravel and good amount of replayability. But ultimately it is still the 5th installment of this series/style of game. While there are some surprises to find, nothing is really surprising anymore. Demon's Souls gave us the ground work for what the game game could be, Dark Souls polished it to greatness, everything to follow feels like its trying to recapture that magic.
So while I personally don't consider Dark Souls III to be the best of the series, it certainly hits on all the points it needed to be a very worthy contender for the best one. At the very least, it is a very satisfying one to close the series out on. It certainly has game of the year potential but this is going to be big year for games. Time will tell on how well it will hold up as the year passes. I love Dark Souls III and if you are a fan of the series, you probably will to.
Then when they scramble they will attack the empty air about 3 or 4 body lengths away, and you will take 3 or 4 hits before you realize their complete misses are actually damaging you. Too late, you are dead. This is literally how every single invade that has happened to me has gone. I understand there is a fervent PVP community in the Souls games, but I have no fucking clue how they operate because the PVP combat in these games its a lag ridden mess. Fuck it.
I hate the Dark Souls Pvp.
Worse yet, on the PC version of the game, there is rampant cheating taking place with people modding their characters with items they shouldn't have and trouncing other online players. And even worse giving players who aren't modding their game modded weapons which are getting innocent players flags for cheating and soft bans. PC players may get to brag about how much better games look on their expensive gaming rigs, but you don't hear console players complaining about rampant cheating and banning.
If I am looking at this game honestly, you can really see how the devs went about their approach in developing this game. They went back and looked out their legacy of work as a whole, looked at what worked, what didn't, looked at what people liked, and what people wanted. If this was going to be the last Souls game to be released obviously they wanted to really nail it. For the most part I feel that they succeed on that front. It's everything I want in a souls game.
But I wouldn't call it the best. I would say that Dark Souls III is a return to form. They went back to worked before, kept the elements people liked and got rid of some that they didn't. It provided a long fulfilling experience with lots of secrets to unravel and good amount of replayability. But ultimately it is still the 5th installment of this series/style of game. While there are some surprises to find, nothing is really surprising anymore. Demon's Souls gave us the ground work for what the game game could be, Dark Souls polished it to greatness, everything to follow feels like its trying to recapture that magic.
So while I personally don't consider Dark Souls III to be the best of the series, it certainly hits on all the points it needed to be a very worthy contender for the best one. At the very least, it is a very satisfying one to close the series out on. It certainly has game of the year potential but this is going to be big year for games. Time will tell on how well it will hold up as the year passes. I love Dark Souls III and if you are a fan of the series, you probably will to.
Seriously though, fuck you on those Ringu spider monster girls, Dark Souls III.
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