Dark Souls III

 the same old soulsborne forumla, nothing really drastic here thats new or original for the series, but I thoroughly enjoy the series so I had a blast with this game as expected. the setting, combat, artstyle, armors, weapons, all just feel GOOD

8/10

 

 

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RE-REVIEW, REPLAY 2025

In Dark Souls 3, it seems like From Soft has tried to go back to their roots in a small wall, because of some of the tension DS2 caused to the fanbase. As everyone may already know, DS2 was not directed and produced by head mastermind Miyazaki, but another director, this is why DS2 was so weirdly different compared to the other games in the series, and it upset some fans. Dark Souls 3 is directed by Miyazaki once again, and this time it even has a new shiny engine. It uses the same engine as Bloodborne, and it certainly shows. Things feel significantly different than how they did in DS2, even controlling the character feels...less weighty and more snappy and responsive, the graphics have an updated sheen with all the lighting, specular, and draw distance enhancements.

Some mechanics have been tweaked around once again, it seems like every Souls game they slightly changed how things work just to keep it fresh, not necessarily because its an improvement, which is fine, I like it, it does make the experience more unique. Like in Dark Souls 1, you level at the bonfire, although you can Kindle it to increase estus per that bonfire - in DS2, you level at the lady in town, DS3 you also level at the lady in town, but theres no bonfire kindling. In Dark souls 2, if you kill enemies enough times in an area, they disappear, but in 3 they never disappear. Stats work differently in each game, Magic, poise, etc, works differently throughout all the games. So each game has its own sort of identity rather than feeling like a quick copy paste with new assets.

I've beaten DS3 many times, maybe a handful. But this recent playthrough I decided to do a full co-op playthrough, as Sorcery, because non-melee is the thing that I've neglected the most in Souls games. Bloodborn was the first game to have the co-op password system, but DS3 also has it, which is a very nice welcome feature. You can set a custom password, and your friend can set it, and then you will only be able to summon eachother and see eachothers summon signs and no one else. It works well to make the co-op experience more manageable and less downtime.

DS3 starts off in a grassy, stony ruin with grey sky. After a short run through the intro area, you're greeted with the classic Souls "oh shit" surprise first boss encounter. Although, this time, You can't even play the rest of the game until you kill this guy, so it kind of assumes you know the deal by now. He is Iudex Gundyr, and its an exciting first fight to the game with elaborate dancing melee moves and intense dodging. After you beat him, you can see Firelink Shrine in the distance. The classic Souls formula of going back to the Hub area home base, full of merchants, leveling up, and general safety. Firelink Shrine in DS3 while it is great, it is maybe my least favorite of the hub worlds in Souls games.. its hard to say. DS1 hub world is iconic, the grassy knoll atop the mountain overlooking the rest of the game. DS2 has Majula, with its magical music and breathtaking vistas and dreamy atmosphere. DS3 hub world is a grey, ruined cobble building with a main circular room with Thrones that you must put 4 main boss Cinders at, and the rest of the area is like a castle of tucked away rooms and corners where you can find merchants and various NPC's. Its good, but it doesnt quite have the magical essence that the other hubs have in the other games for me. The music isn't as memorable, either. The Firelink theme is more like a swooping melancholic moan than any memorable motif. Also, I'm not fond of it being called Firelink Shrine, rather than having its own unique name. But thats a nitpick.

Something weird and maybe my biggest critique of DS3 is how the levels arent really connected to the main hubworld anymore. For instance, in DS1, everything eventually leads back to Firelink shrine. You never have to warp anywhere (except some secret areas  or DLC) , you can walk throughout the entire game. I'm pretty sure DS2 is more or less like this also. But in DS3, the majority of the game is instanced off and must be warped to. It feels a little lazy, and like they just threw up their hands and didnt want to put the effort into fleshing the whole world out in a coherent way. You just randomly warp through all these random individual levels, it feels more arcadey, gamey, and less like a coherent fantasy world. The levels do often interconnect with themselves, revealing shortcuts and secret paths that loop back around, but its disappointing it never leads back to the hubworld making the whole map feel fleshed out. Maybe its just another nitpick, but I feel like it contributes to the game being less memorable for me.

The first substancial level is High Wall of Lothric. Its like this big top side of castle rooftops, bridges, walkways, and weaving between interiors. The overall level design of the game and its areas, and especially its architecture and the amount of interesting things you can see in the distance is just amazing. Many times I would stop and just turn the camera and look at random things in the distance in awe. Spectacular environments and environmental story telling. This first level is a strong introduction to the game, it has many of the iconic Souls elements. Its got Dragons, Knights, Undead, Dogs, NPC's locked in jails, weird mutating monsters, all sorts of interesting sights and sounds. However, since I'm doing this playthrough entirely in co-op , it does expose maybe a critical flaw in the multiplayer system, at least early on. As you probably know, to do co-op in Souls games you need to be in a special character state. In DS1 its called Human, in DS2 its Reverse Hollowing, in DS3 its being Embered. So you need to collect uncommon rare items to consume so you can become in this Embered state before you can summon your co-op friend. In the, probably first 25% of the game, these are very precious and uncommon. You will only have a handful or two of them, and everytime you die you must re-consume them, meaning you only have a small amount of chances to do co-op. I know the devs probably didnt really intend for you to play the entire game co-op, and thats why they made them rare and punishing, and that they probably only intended co-op for these small instances when the player is stuck, I understand that, but still, the system early on has a critical annoyance - Invasions of course. But not just simply being invaded, theres something wonky and off about the level scaling on the first quarter of the game for when you can be invaded. It's near impossible to play any of the first quarter of the game in co-op the "proper" way. You get invaded every 90 seconds or less. And its not just that you get invaded, but you get invaded by these over leveled, meta, geared out characters that one shot you and your friend and its hopeless to defeat them. The balance is horrible. There are many ways this could have been fixed. Tweak the level scaling for allowing invaders to invade new players, and when you manage to kill an invader atleast reward the player with an Ember so it feels like its worth doing. Instead, you get nothing but some measly souls and its usually not much. Although when you do manage to defeat them, you get an invisible cooldown timer where you cant get invaded again, thats one thing I guess. But it got so bad that we devised a bullshit strategy to just avoid invasions all together, so we could atleast play the game. Everytime we got invaded we would ALT+F4 quit the game, and not only that, but we realize if you BLOCK the account through Steam, they can never invade you again. So every time we got invaded we would ALT+F4 quit, then pull up their account on Steam and block them. We eventually must of had like, hundreds of accounts blocked, but it finally let us progress through the game. Its ridiculous that its come to that, but it is what it is. And like I said, I don't necessarily mind being invaded - it can be a fun and exciting mechanic, just the balance for it around early game is trash, and theres hardly any reward or incentive for doing it. It makes the whole thing feel hopeless and pointless to engage with. Luckily, later on in the game when we became sorta geared and stood a chance, we usually did welcome invasions, and had some fun with it. So its just the very beginning of the game where the balance is messed up with the invasion system.

With that out of the way we could finally progress through the game. Now, Sorcery playthroughs are always interesting in Souls games. It reveals a unique whole other side of the game to engage with. And let me tell you, Sorcery in DS3 is pretty powerful. Maybe too powerful. First I decided to go straight for 40 Int, to boost my damage. I picked the Sorcerer class, so I also started with a ring that boosts magic damage. For the first bit of the game, theres not many spells to choose from, though. Just the standard Soul arrow and I think Heavy Soul. But still, being able to fight enemies from afar, and especially bosses, was an interesting experience compared to my melee playthroughs.

The first handful of levels in the game are quite good, High wall of Lothric, Undead Settlement, Road of Sacrifices, Farron Keep, and Cathedral of the Deep. This selection of levels gives a varied and interesting set of challenges to navigate from.  At the end of Lothric you find another Souls trope - getting lifted off the current level by some Bird, or Beast to fly you to a new level. Its cool, I like it. Then you find yourself ni Undead Settlement, a sort of series of villages full of monster villagers, beasts and foes. As usual, theres lots of interesting items and chests, secrets to find which is a big contribution to why the Souls games are so satisfying to explore every inch. The items you come across are intriguing, unique, and can change entire playstyles. So you always feel like searching every nook and cranny and trying to find secrets. Here you come across the second boss, which is this big walking Tree guy. This is maybe one of the less amazing bosses in the game, especially as magic. You have to shoot his egg sacks to do real damage to him, but as magic you cant target his egg sacks so its this awkward guessing game of randomly shooting off spells and hoping you hit them. Actually, by this point I think we just resorted to using some crappy sword to hit the sacks. Then the floor falls, and he slams his big arm around the arena and its quite dangerous. I mean the fight isnt awful, its just a little gimmicky and kinda bad as magic. Road of Sacrifices is a pretty straight forward level, its a lot of cliffsides and paths and rocky mountain areas that eventually leads to some castle ruins and lakes. Not a bad area, but not extremely memorable or anything. It works, and its fun to explore and get through. Theres just not that many memorable set pieces for it. It leads to the boss Crystal Sage, which is a sort of call back to earlier Souls bosses like Pinwheel and even Demons Souls Fool's Idol boss, in that the Crystal Sage is a witch that clones herself and you can only damage the real witch and the clones are just to trick you. Its a fun enough fight, with both magic and melee. Its challenging, but not too challenging. Then you move onto Farron Keep, another classic trope of the Souls series - Poison swamp. As is tradition, every Souls game needs a massive flat poison swamp. This one has a unique twist - you must go around and light these lanterns to open a giant gate. There are so many items to find here that it makes the area exciting, even though it is just another big poison swamp. Even getting invaded by NPC's is fresh and exciting and you come across some strange characters in this game. Even though it is just a big poison swamp, I'd still say its an interesting and good level. The twist with the lighting the lamps, and the array of bizarre enemies you come across makes it not get boring or feel lazy. The boss for this area is Abyss Watchers, which is this sort of trenchcoat Knight guy with two swords, he has a really fun move set and fighting him is like this careful dance, however its a bit disappointing that he notoriously has a low health pool so hes easier than he maybe should of been , especially with magic. By this point we were starting to melt bosses with our spells.

Cathedral of the Deep is an area full of these enemies that just keep getting back up, its like mummies, so it adds a weird twist to have to be worried about. No longer can you just slowly kill everything in your path, now its more beneficial to just run past enemies and only kill some of them. A neat change of pace, You go through all sorts of small buildings and theres this one particularly dangerous strong sword wielding enemy you have to deal with. Many branching paths keep the level interesting, although I'm not sure its one of my favorite levels overall. Eventually you do get inside the cathedral, and its filled with this swampy water which slows you, although doesn't hurt you. This is where you can find the notorious Patches encounter that each souls game has. You walk out onto this ledge, and you get a cutscene of Patches tricking you and kicking you into the pit, then you are surrounded by these giant state enemies. You also find the Onion knight here and his quest. There is no shortage of interesting NPC's to encounter here in DS3, like earlier in Undead Settlement you come across a Knight who guards a Priestess and he has his own questline, who has a quirky bodyguard that just grunts when you try to talk to him. You find the Sorcery NPC in Farron Keep tucked in a corner, and a mysterious npc called Yuria shows up at Firelink also. The boss of Cathedral of the Deep is another sort of gimmicky boss, honestly maybe the least interesting one in the game. Its just a bunch of infinitely respawning Priest minions, but one of them is the guy you must hurt, so you kinda just use AOE attacks to kill hordes of these minions and damage the main Priest, not much to it, but at least it does differenciate its self.

Then you have areas like Catacombs of Carthus, and its reminiscent of the Catacombs from DS1. Some skeletons respawn unless you use Divine damage, youre crawling through narrow tunnels full of undead, mages, and even giant boulder traps you must evade. Another exciting level with lots of twists and turns and secrets to find. The level design throughout the game isn't strictly linear, you can often times go to some levels almost whenever you want, you dont have to do them strictly in the same order. And inside the actual levels you'll often find yourself with a dizzying amount of options of paths you can take, it makes each area feel interesting and exciting, you get the "Whats around this corner?" or "Wait, I can go that path instead...which one should I take?" feeling often, and it keeps the pace of the game fresh and exciting instead of this linear feeling of just walking through one obvious path. It helps retain the sense of wonder throughout the whole game. This area leads to probably the worst boss in the game, though. High Lord Wolnir, this giant skeleton guy that kinda glides across the ground, attacking you with his big sword, wearing bracelets you must break in order to damage him... like why?. He also randomly spawns minions to fight you making the arena a clusterfuck. You also slowly get backed into the wall which then makes the fight even more obnoxious. Then ontop of it, as magic you cant target his bracelets, so you kinda just have to aimlessly try to shoot spells at his bracelets to do real damage, it sucks. It wasnt too challenging for us, but just conceptually and in execution its not a great boss fight.

The game has a couple completely optional miss-able areas that are quite fleshed out. Smouldering Lake, Untended Graves, and Archdragon Peak in particular. Smouldering Lake is this big lava area where you get arrows shot down at you, you can climb up the mountain to stop the arrow firing and inside the mountain is this big labyrinth you have to navigate, I must admit is not the most fun map in the game, maybe why its optional. But it does have a fun unique boss fight and interesting enemeis and items to encounter. Untended Graves is a remix of the first area in the game, complete with alternate dark Firelink which invokes a sense of mystery and fascination to explore. Archdragon Peak is probably the most elaborate of these optional areas, its also strange how you find it. You have to do a certain emote at a certain location. There is a dragon shrine on a hillside and you have to use Path of Dragon emote for like, 15 seconds there, then you get teleported away to the area. Its an area with multiple dragon fights, and one of them you are sort of intended to not even fight in a traditional way as melee, but to run throughout the level, climbing through scaffolding to eventually get above the boss and do a jumping attack to one hit him. However as magic you can just shoot spells at him to kill him quite effortlessly which makes it more into an actual boss fight, albeit a kinda medicore one. Still, the area is elaborate with lots to explore and fight. Eventually it leads to the real boss of the area: Nameless King. This guy is probably one of the hardest in the game, and its probably best to only do this area almost at the end of the game, which we did, we did this area right before the last boss. As Magic though, we took this guy down without much struggle, its still a very cool fight with two phases.

The rest of the levels in the game all hold their own as fun intricate locations, you even have Anor Londo, a total fan-service call back to DS1, something this game does off and on quite abit. They do these "Hey, remember this?" segments, maybe to try to win back good will from the fanbase since the DS2 debacle. Anor Londo here in DS3 is a cut down, minimal version of the DS1 location. Many areas are barred off or absent entirely. Its mostly just this one main hall from the Ornstein & Smough fight and not much else, still its cool to see it come back for a brief time. The boss here is very cool, maybe top 5. Aldritch , Devourer of Gods. Hes wearing similar attire and  helmet as Gwyndolin from DS1, another neat callback. He is a mix of melee/mage and shoots purple spells at you that are quite dangerous, also does a rain of arrows attack that requires constant dodging. A fun fight for sure, and promptly challenging.


Then we have Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, perhaps the most fantastical and magical looking area in the game. It starts off by you going across this big bridge, then you get surprised with this dragon reptile thing that fights you. In the distance you can see this twinkling hazy magic city. As you get close, it wont let you pass a barrier unless you have this Doll in your inventory that you can find earlier in the game. Once you get in, youre greeted by these Pontif Knights that are agile and dangerous, some of the most fun enemies in the game to fight actually. The level its self is a series of courtyards and castle exterior, but the visuals and architecture is so elaborately designed, it looks very regal and dreamlike. This level is great, with lots of its own unique encounters and challenges, like mages that shoot spells from across the level at you, while you fight the knights and lesser enemies.  There is all sorts of multiple branching paths you can take here, I think leading to entirely different levels so you can pick what you want to do when. You then unlock shortcuts like elevators and opening doors to help with these branching paths which is satisfying and rewarding to find. Theres a few bosses here, Pontiff Sulyvahn is another King type agile warrior , which has a giant flame sword and epic music accompanying his fight, a good boss. Then Yhorm the Giant , which is a kinda call back to the Demon's Souls boss where you have to get the Storm Sword to do real damage. Don't really like this fight that much, its another kinda gimmicky battle. As melee, you have to run to the end of the arena, grab the Storm sword, equip it, then you can shoot gusts of wind at him that take massive chunks off his health and take him out easily. But as Magic, you can target him and do substantial damage, at least turning it into a normal boss fight, which makes him a bit more interesting. Still a mid tier fight though. This area also leads to Irithyll Dungeon, which gives me vibes of Demon's Souls Tower of Latria. A series of prions, jails, with these weird mages that have a unique mechanic that not only damage you, but lower your entire health bar for a short duration which gives the whole level this unique strategic element of not getting close to these guys. There are weird horror vibes and oddities here, like this one area where this one deformed strange enemy just stands against the wall and is completely docile and peaceful and wont attack you, while other similar enemies will. Just bizarre, in a good way. Stuff thats just meant to screw with the player, and I'm here for it. This place has all sorts of shortcuts, secrets, and branching paths to explore as well, giving it quite a bit of depth and complexity.

Then theres 3 last areas, Profaned Capital, Lothric Castle, and Grand Archives.

Profaned Capital has a separate optional area you can miss, its another sort of mini poison swamp, there is no bonfire here, but its not too far away from one. It's full of these weid, hard giant hand monsters, and other creepy crawlies, and goodies to find. Profaned Capital in general is a really important area for Sorcery as you find many powerful and important items, including the best staff in the game. Actually one complaint about Sorcery is that theres hardly any staves you find throughout the playthrough. You start with Sorcerer staff and its basically the best staff in the game up until youre about 75% through the game. I would of liked more variety in weapon choices for sorcery, yes there is a handful of other ones you find, but they don't excel at pure sorcery but Faith/int or similar niche things. I'll quickly point-out here that the game also has a ton of mimicks, like mimicks are effective in DS1 because they are uncommon, they only happen a few times. But in DS3 its like every second chest is a Mimick, so it no longer has the element of surprise, but its more something you expect so it kinda takes away from it a bit. They are fun (and dangerous) to fight, so there is that at least.

Lothric Castle is the other path you can take and its reminiscent of the beginning of the game, the High Wall of Lothric. Similar sort of set pieces and vibe, just much more challenging. Climbing across castle rooftops, and a bridge with a dragon that you have to drop down first. A fun level where you work yourself through castles exteriors and interiors. It leads to Grand Archives. This area is seemingly another callback to DS1's Dukes Archives, also being one of the last levels of that game. Its a nice way to piece things together while giving you a subtle cue that the pacing of the game is coming to a close. This is a series of winding hallways, libraries, and upwards spirals and staircases that is dizzying but satisfying to figure out. Levers all over the place that reshape the level, this weird mechanic where you can dunk your head in candlewax to avoid damage from these magical hands that come out of bookshelves, its a weird but fun level. Here you find the mandatory boss Lothric Younger Prince. Except its a duo boss, phase one has you just fighting the man, but then phase two has a witch climbing on his back constantly reviving him. You have to target the witch to beat the fight. One of the highlights of the boss fights in the game I'd say, theres lots going on and fun dodging and decisions to make. However, as usual, the sorcery is very good in this game, so no bosses really gave us much struggle. I mean, we have to do everything twice in co-op anyway, so we were also a bit overlevelled anyway. After you get through it, you have the final Cinder. Go back to Firelink, put all the Cinders on the thrones, and you can then warp to the final area with the final boss. This area visually looks stunning and surreal, the backdrop is a twisted mass of the game world warped all around the sky in a crumble of ruins. Its a sight to behold. It sets the epic walk up to the final boss area.

The final boss is Soul of Cinder, a humanoid Knight type enemy not much dissimilar from the final boss of DS1. He is of course challenging , and a very fun fight. But as others, in co-op with magic we made quick haste of him without much struggle, magic is just very good in this game. Of course I've beaten him with melee characters and had to interact with his mechanics more then, and struggled, and it certainly is rewarding and exciting when you manage to beat him as a real challenge also. Then in typical Souls fashion you can pick what ending you want, not linking the fire or linking the fire. Que ending cutscene and credits roll. At least this time it asks you if you want to go to NG+ or not, you can linger in the game world and do more stuff if you want before going to NG+ , which is cool.

Dark Souls 3 is a very good game, almost bordering on masterpiece. The itemization, especially the rings and amount of fun stuff you can collect and equip, the fashion of all the equipment and the general tone, artistic design and integrity of the game world, the fascinating NPC's and their dialogue and mysterious stories, the whole lore of the world and the weird monsters and level design with its shortcuts and elevators, each level is pretty distinguished and has their own identity, its a great entry into the series. There isn't a bad Souls game. Its just hard to rank them. Like of course DS1 is my favorite, but really I might like DS2 and 3 almost similarly, I don't really get the hate for DS2. Its great in its own unique, weird way. But so is DS3. They are great replayable games, I feel like I will keep replaying these souls games once every few years because theres always some new weird quirky thing to discover, some new build to play around with, some new NPC storyline to do, theres so many dynamic things that happen in each playthrough. And the world design and general artistic quality of the games are unlike anything else. And I'm going to replay the DS3 DLC as well, this review isn't even mentioning that. A timeless great experience.

9/10