Dark Souls III

Playtime: 69.2 Hours

There are very few games that have managed to truly captivate my attention. To the point I am playing the game on late nights and getting up early to play it in the morning.

Dark Souls 3 managed to do that.

This game is brilliant. Fantastic gameplay, bosses, enemies, locations, Dark Souls 3 has it all. If I had one flaw for it, It would be the story. I'm told I have to "find" the story, but I'm just not a player that works that way. That being said, I didn't buy this game for the story, I bought it for the combat.

I picked one of the strongest META builds in the game, being Mercenary with Twinswords. I choose this because the closest Soulslike I have played would be Jedi-Survivor on Jedi Master difficulty. I assumed I would be getting my ass handed to very often.

I was correct, but not as often as I thought.

Funnily enough, the earliest locations were the toughest for me. This is due to me playing too aggressively. That paired with not enough healing items and super tough enemies made it very difficult to start with.

The game got easier for me when I started using my bow. Luring in enemies into one-on-one confrontations. Still, I would get handed to fairly easily.

After I started using my shield, everything changed completely.

Instead of rolling around like a headless chicken, I lured the enemy to me, got the shield up and circled the enemy in their inner-guard. While I would still get hit the odd time it made my one-on-one encounters super easy. And that was when I started to feel good at Dark Souls.

Most of the bosses were fairly easy using this playstyle. Circle, shield up, wait for opening. For some of the early bosses, using an ember allows for summonable friends to join in the battle.

I died a total of 102 times from bosses, 39 of them was from the Abyss Watchers, which was my true skill check of the game. I really wished I knew about being able to summon NPCs beforehand, because it would have made my battles a heck of a lot easier!

This game can be truly stunning. There are so many beautiful areas in this game, that are so fun to explore. I rarely do this for games, but allow me to talk about each area one by one.

We start with Cementary of Ash, and I think its a great place to start the world. The enemies aren't too tough, and it's a great area to tackle your first Soulsborne. While there aren't too many tough enemies, you now know you are probably going to get overwhelmed fighting too many and some are best to be flat out avoided. They loved it so much, they brought it back in Untended Graves!

Lothric is such a beautiful place, the castle and they surrounding area. It has a brilliant view and filled with tons action. Like the first dragon in the game!

Undead Settlement keeps it up, a brilliant location with enemies and areas that feel straight out of Resident Evil 4.

Road of Sacrifices kind of halts this. Half the area is battling in a forest like area, the other in a forest like area with a Swamp and a small keep. A problem with it though, is it's not a very fun area to explore.

Cathedral of the Deep is an area I don't like because it scares me. It's filled to the brim with loads of tough enemies and the Cathedral itself has a brilliant atmosphere. And fighting outside on the roof of the Cathedral was really fun as well.

Farron Keep annoys me. Poison Swamp. Poison swamp with not much fun to do.

Catacombs of Carthus is the start of a truly awful trend for this game. Underground areas. But not just that. Underground areas that aren't fun.

Because Smouldering Lake is the next area you go to, though it is optional. And that has the same problems that Catacombs has! But the enemies are even tougher!

Then you come across Irithyll of the Boreal Valley and you feel your breath being taken away. When you see it in the distance, you just stop for a moment to take in the scenary. And then you start battling in the are and you are having so much fun.

And Anor Londo is very similar again. It's another hard area, but stunning in visual design. While I do think the enemies are a bit too difficult here, it is still a blast of fun to play.

Then Irithyll Dungeon comes along and your previous cheers vanishes into thin air. This is the worst area of the game for having mobs that reduce your health WHEN THEY SEE YOU. Not only that, they have an attack that can easily be a one hit KO if you haven't levelled up much of your health. The game doesn't give you much of an idea on where to go as well, and you will be using your Estus Flask quite often to heal up. While I do believe there is some bad level design in this area, it's the amount of enemies parred with the abilities of these enemies that make the area is a struggle to get through, and I dreaded going back to it on repeat playthroughs.

When you are done trudging through the Dungeon, you come across Profaned Capital, which while not being nearly as bad of an area, but I really don't like it either. It has a nice visual, but that's all I see it as. The runback to the boss is also really annoying, so I started having a dislike for the place, even though it's only a small part of the game.

The Consumed King's Garden is like Farron Keep. Swampy area with poison. Some hard enemies and a bit of an annoying runback to the boss. This area would be so much better, if there was no poison.

Lothric Castle is another very touch area, I enjoyed going through it a lot. And while there was a lot of enemies, and I was constantly getting low on health, the game felt fair. I was dying due to carelessness rather than cheap tricks that make the game less fun.

The final optional area of the base game is Archdragon Peak, and it's one of my favorite areas in the game. While not my most favorite, it feels the most unique, and I really enjoyed the bosses here especially as well. The final boss of this area is so much fun (when the camera isn't messing with you), and it's second phase is just absolutely peak.

And that brings me to the final area, Kiln of the First Flame. After going through so much of the game, it was great getting to the end, and I was thinking "This is it." It's a great feeling when you finally beat the game and put the controller down.

Basically, a lot of the areas that take place in caves, dungeons or underground just generally suck. And is a sucky experience to play through.

There are enemies that feel unfair to fight. Giant Spiders, Giant trees, Giants...in general, but they aren't cheap to fight. Mobs are either pushovers that can be challenging in groups, challenging on their own, or straight up be Mini-bosses.

So my final thoughts?

This is a fantastic game. The combat is amazingly addictive, and while playing through it, I was constantly thinking about it, and how I should change my style of combat while battling. However, It is not perfect. It has great combat, and it very fun fighting one-on-one, but any more than that, and it starts to feel very unfair. That paired that there is some very frustrating level design brought my enjoyment down. I wished the story was a bit more direct, my enjoyment of a movie is brought down when I don't understand what I'm watching and it felt like that playing this. However, again, I didn't play this for the story, I played for combat. And the combat is just amazing. From normal enemies to bosses, they are fun to fight.

At the very least, I believe you should try this game. It won't be for everyone, but it is very good to me. If you don't like it, that's fine, but it would be criminal not to try.