Dark Souls III: The Fire Fades Edition – PlayStation 4

This game would almost be fun if it weren’t for the bosses and the horrendous PvP system. Parrying ruins PvP completely. People are able to use shields that weigh very little to parry your massive 2 handed weaoon and afterwards they get a free counter hit that can literally kill you in 1 hit. Oh and if they miss time their parry, they’re punished very minimally, so it’s a risk-to-reward no brainer, so all everyone does is try to parry each other.Rolling is also a very poorly designed mechanic, you’re essentially invulnerable even though you can clearly see the attacks hitting you. Your at the mercy of the other person’s connection, and wether or not your hits land or not seems totally random and to not match the visuals at all. Often you’ll be hit, make a noise as if you’re hit, bleed as if you were hit, but you’ll take no damage… Don’t even get me started in the input lag, which can be as delayed as 2-3 seconds, even in offline single player mode! Terrible targeting system, and camera system. You’ll die more to not being able to see that you will from legitimately fighting and losing. The jump system is also atrocious, the jump button being the same analog stick you use to run. So inevitably what happens is you click down the analog button, but if you don’t press it perfectly downward your character jumps in a totally random direction.The bosses are just a 2-3 hour long guessing session where you basically just have to guess if they’re going to swing 2 times or 3 times or if they’re going to delay their swing or not. You’ll basically just have to fight the bosses until you guess correctly enough times and get lucky that they don’t attack you 8 times in a row because if they just decide to, you’ll run out of stamina and there’s literally nothing you can do to dodge them.

Beautiful, mysterious, epic adventure through an ashen world clinging to its last embers. This game is truly a masterpiece, and a fitting end to a wonderful series. FromSoft put their all into this one and it showed. I was worried I wouldn’t enjoy it because I watched a lot of playthroughs before getting the game myself. Thankfully, that did not take away from my enjoyment of this game. I’ll agree that it was the easiest of the Soulsborne games for me, and I did not find a single boss to be Manus or Kos levels of difficult, though everyone’s experience will be different. It loses to Bloodborne on atmosphere, but only slightly. DLCs were awesome. I don’t have PS+ so I can’t comment on the PvP. Overall, get this game, get this edition, and go forth on your last journey in the Souls series. You’ll have no regrets.

Great game, all dlc+game on one disk. Big fan of the series, Dark Souls 3 and the Souls series in general is well known for its difficulty, big boss fights, and crazy player vs player invasions.

This review is mainly for the folks who’ve played (and enjoyed) Bloodborne, and are wondering if Dark Souls 3 has some of that same magic. Because of this, I’ll be making several comparisons between the two throughout this review. It’s funny because I really didn’t have an interest in Dark Souls 3 and I promised myself that Bloodborne would be my last From Software game, but here I am… Once you play a From Software game, you’re eventually going to miss it enough that you’ll need to scratch that itch one way or another. Is Dark Souls 3 an itch worth scratching? I’ll discuss 8 reasons why or why not.[1] Nobody does combat quite like From Software, and that’s a fact. This feels different than Bloodborne, but it’s still quite good. Bloodborne was all about aggression and taking the fight to the enemy. I tried that approach here and failed miserably. Even with a quick weapon, you’re going to have to be patient and pick your spots. I’ll give Dark Souls 3 credit for not catering to a specific type of gamer. If you prefer “tanky” builds that involve using a shield, there’s a build for you. Or, maybe you prefer to hang back and rely on magic? Well, there’s a couple of different build types for you. And of course, if you’re like me and prefer dodging instead of parrying, you’ll be just fine. When you hear “weapon arts”, do you think of a From Software game? Me neither…I was surprised by the new mechanic, but I didn’t use it much — at all. You execute it by pressing the L2 button and it’ll vary greatly depending on the weapon you’re using. Although I stuck with the same dual swords throughout my journey, there are a TON of other weapons you’ll find along the way, so you won’t have to limit yourself.[2] One of the sort of annoying things about Bloodborne was how spread out the lamps were (called bonfires in other souls games). I was very happy and surprised at how many bonfires I found throughout my playthrough. In many cases, when I died to a boss, I didn’t have to go terribly far to get back to said boss. There’s maybe a couple that were spread out, and that’s about it. That may not matter to some, but it sure in the hell matters to me![3] Again, this is another aspect that From Software does better than any other developer out there — Enemy types! It’s as simple as this: Every new area should introduce new enemy types. That seems very straightforward to me, but yet a lot of devs still don’t understand that. These are probably the smartest enemies I’ve ever seen. There’s no way to trick them and get an easy kill. The RNG (Random Number Generator) was in overdrive in this game!! Just in case you’re unfamiliar with RNG; it determines probability in a game. For example: RNG might determine how often an enemy performs a certain attack, and when they may perform it. Boss battles were interesting in this aspect because I never knew what to expect from them. I’m used to bosses doing the same moves over and over, and in a particular order. I quickly caught on that things were different in this game. I remember dying to a certain boss and thinking to myself “Oh, I know your move-set now, so you’re going down next time.” The next fight felt completely different because he came out of the gate with a move he did NOT do the previous time! That shook me to my core, and of course I died. I’m not going to lie and say some of this didn’t feel cheap at times, but at least they’re trying something different. I’d prefer this instead of an easy boss battle. However, I sometimes felt like it was better to be lucky than good, and I’ll explain what I mean. When I died to a boss in Bloodborne, I felt like it was my fault (git gud applies here). That wasn’t always the case in Dark Souls 3 . Remember that RNG stuff? I would sometimes go through an entire fight without the boss doing specific attacks that I struggled with, hence giving me a better opportunity to win. Isn’t that more about being lucky than good? Git luki?[4] Ok, here’s a checkmark in the win column for Bloodborne. I am not a fan of the healing mechanic in this game. In Bloodborne, it was so easy to heal yourself. All you had to do was crush a blood vial on your knee, and BOOM! This worked even in the heat of a battle. Try healing yourself in the heat of a battle in Dark Souls 3. Go ahead, try it and tell me how it goes. Your character takes forever to drink that DAMN ESTUS FLASK!!!!! As soon as you put your head back to drink it, the boss is all over you. Like I said, they’re smart, so they see you drinking it. I understand it’s realistic because if someone is trying to murder you, why would they give you time to drink a damn healing potion? I’d surmise that the majority of my deaths in boss battles happened when trying to drink a health potion. I get why they’re doing it, but do I have to like it? It’s not ALL bad, though. At least they start you off with 3 potions every time you visit a bonfire (you can upgrade the amount you can carry). In Bloodborne, I had to farm potions…[5] There’s a ton of loot in this game, and I couldn’t care less. So, like I said earlier, I stuck with the same weapon throughout my playthrough. What this means is I passed up on a ton of weapons that I found lying around, or ones that dropped from enemies. I’m not blaming the game for my disinterest in the loot, but I DO wish there were more dual curved swords in the game. If they were, I probably would have tried them (There’s one other set that’s dropped by a boss, late game). Loot also comes in the form of concoctions and other items that I didn’t really care about. I’m not saying these things don’t serve a purpose for some people, but I finished the game without utilizing most of the loot I found.[6] This is far from an original thought, but the camera is by far the most difficult enemy in the game. There’s a specific fight where a certain whore (you know who you are) teleported all over the place, and the camera had a difficult time keeping up with this individual. The lock-on feature tends not to work when someone is disappearing and teleporting. I actually avoided taking on an optional boss because I heard how bad the camera was during that fight, and I’d already had enough of that. It’s very telling if I avoid a fight due to the camera because I usually don’t run from anything or anyone in a video game! So yeah, Bloodborne had a more cooperative camera.[7] Did you like the macabre atmosphere in Bloodborne? If so, you’ll love the atmosphere here as well. I’m not necessarily proud to admit this, but I had to play this game with the lights on, LOL! It’s not one of those action-horror jump-scare types of games, but some of the enemies and environments made me feel uncomfortable at times. With that being said, that’s a big reason why these games are so popular because although they are not open-world, the environments can be breathtaking to look at — in a gothic horror kind of way.[8] I don’t agree with including multiplayer in this type of game, but here we are (it was in Bloodborne as well). Even if I wanted to try it out, it seemed pretty confusing to play with other people. It’s not as simple as sending your buddy a request to join. Don’t quote me on this, but I think you’ll need to have a certain item in your possession, then crush said item, then add a password if you want, then lay down a sign, and who knows whatever the hell else. I mean, do you WANT people to play together? This also flies in the face of the git gud mantra because if you need help getting past Pontiff Sulyvahn, then are you really gitting gud as a player? Doesn’t git gud mean keep trying until you’re gud enough to win? Sup?In a nutshell; if you liked Bloodborne, you’ll like this game as well. They’re both 4 star games for me, with Bloodborne being a little closer to 5. I feel like they’re headed in the direction of being a bit more cheap than hard, so I can’t help but wonder how cheap Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice might be? (I have no interest in finding out). If you’re brand new to From Software games, and you’re going to start here: Dammit, good luck! GreedFall; you’re up next!!

Many people by now probably heard of the dark souls franchise already, famous for their difficulty. This being my first dark souls game, that was what I was expecting, but after completing the game now, I realized there is so much more to the game than that. The rich world and lore, sastifying combat, and even just the community surrounding the game; it’s just so perfect in its own way. I would highly recommend this game even if you consider yourself a “casual gamer,” the game is too good to past up.