Dark Souls III marks the return of series creator Hidetaka Miyazaki to the director chair, after focusing his attention on the brilliant PS4 exclusive, Bloodborne, and the result is a sharp and condensed crawl through a desolate world that is sure to engulf both new and returning fans of the series.
Following 2014’s Dark Souls 2 and 2015’s Bloodborne, From has released a full game in its signature action role-playing style every spring — not to mention a full redesign of Dark Souls 2 as well. It’s a release schedule that seems harsh when it comes to shooters like Call of Duty; for 50-plus-hour RPG epics, it’s downright unfathomable.
For the third year in a row, the studio has pulled it off, and Dark Souls 3 remains a deep, complicated, fascinating experience. But it’s also one with some big flaws, weaknesses that are more visible and harder to ignore than they’ve ever been. Dark Souls 3 isn’t a failure, but it’s also a long shot from the well-honed RPG experience I’ve come to expect from the series.
Dark Souls III takes place in the same world as its strict predecessors, but in a different realm, in this case, Lothric. It is a place with many affinities with the Lordran of Dark Souls, but seems to occur either after thousands of years or thousands of kilometers away. Lorthric is the land of the lords of the ashes, who managed to extend the life of the first flame. This has obvious affinities with the theme of the first Souls . You belong to unkindled, the no-fire, and your awakening occurs in a world that is almost extinct in the last breath of life. The way this is reflected in the game is the constant ash that covers the world: your own character burns very slowly, dropping a few embers from time to time as you slowly filled with soot. Your destiny is to seek out the lords of the first call and end their lives to give up their souls.
Dark Souls is a series known for its challenge, and Dark Souls 3’s combat easily tops the series in that regard. Several of the game’s bosses are far and away the hardest I’ve ever faced in any game, encounters that I found intimidating and mechanically demanding. The game’s final pair of boss fights, in particular, had me tearing my hair out. Even the most difficult enemies follow recognizable patterns, however; memorizing and overcoming these incredibly difficult opponents left me exhausted and weary but smiling.
Like its predecessors, the game features a class system that lets you build your character to specialize in physical damage, skill or magic; various stats allow you to customize your character and turn it into warrior, mage, Pyromancer or remain a savage with a club (deprived); weapons and items help build characters completely different dynamics.However, there are some innovations. The main thing is that each weapon has a knack own activated with a button.For example, the club has the WarCry, with which temporarily increases your attack; the uchigatana has a deadly blow samurai, weapons like whips and swords have multiple punches that can kill several enemies at once, etc. Each time you activate this ability FP will spend a system similar to mana spent with skills and spells, and can be recharged with a new type of bottle Estus, the ashen Estus.
As the flow of combat, Dark Souls III is an intermediate point between the speed of Bloodborne and the strength of the saga Souls . Your character can be as slow as you want, but many enemies simply not going to wait. Even some leaders, like Mr. Ice, is a beast like what you might find in the last installment of From Software, with lightning fast movements. Many bosses and enemies have complex sequences of fast attack that can only be overcome with great speed and reflexes: this is positive, gives a pacing himself to the game but you can tackle it with many different builds.
As for visual and stage design, Dark Souls III is also quite close to Bloodborne , at least for its graphics engine and visual effects. Abound multiple light sources, the scenes with candles, beasts consumed by darkness with zombies campiranos, etc. However, the tone of the Souls series is present, and Lovecraftian elemenos have disappeared in favor of Dark Fantasy . The more typical and original design element in this game is, however, the spectacular scenery. The environments are much more open (in size, not in design philosophy) and the views are stunning. Huge cathedrals, infinite spaces, larger than life itself castles. The game looks pretty good and gives a sense of fantasy more complete than Dark Souls II and gray gloomy and claustrophobic dungeons. In this, the game also takes a step forward.
Where the game does not step forward it is on the technical side, the game has unexplained falls framerate on all platforms, including PC. They have been reported across all platforms and even by other reviewers so I suspect that is a general problem of the game and its graphics engine.
The game’s final moments feel like an elegantly written love letter to the lore friends who have been combing through the series item descriptions for years. I can’t definitively answer the question of whether this game serves as a solid conclusion to the series because of its multiple endings, but it sure as hell feels like the end of an era.
As the final game in the series, Dark Souls III delivers a fantastic, no holds barred, 30-hour experience that will satisfy longtime fans. Dark Souls III polishes its gameplay mechanics to a shine, and delivers the lore in droves to those who hunger for it – the perfect mix for an action RPG.
