Dark Souls III - Review
Originally published December 2016If you've read my Initial Impressions on it, it should come as no surprise that I'm pretty pleased with the game as a whole. Though, now that I've completed it and can look back on it, I have some new opinions and thoughts about the overall package.
Image: Bandai Namco
Story
Eons and eons of time have passed since the events of the original Dark Souls and its sequel. The fires of the world have been rekindled again and again each time the Age of Fire started to draw to a close and the world became enveloped in the darkness of man. There were once heroes of ages past who had rekindled the fires of the world. All of whom have disappeared to their supposed homes. As the flames begin to die once more, they're summoned to combine their powers and kindle the fire again. However, they have forsaken their duty and instead surrounded themselves with treasure, lived in the palaces of gods, or entertained themselves with endless combat. Now, it's up to you to bring the heroes of the world together, or pieces of them, to rekindle the dying flames of the world's fire to forgo the inevitable end of a dying age.
If what I just said makes no sense and means nothing to you, don't worry, that's how Dark Souls does its thing. There's this deep, rich lore taking place in the background and it is there for those who seek it out, but it is also relatively inconsequential to the game's action. For someone who has been invested in the series and its lore from the start, like me, it makes all the difference that the world be flushed out with credible and tasteful writing or just some sort of meaningful backstory motivation.
Image: Bandai Namco
I'm happy to report that Dark Souls III meets my expectations of building an interesting, cohesive world. It also has some of the best writing I've seen in the series. If you're at all familiar with how the Souls games have done their story-telling, you know that a majority of the lore and plot is gathered through item descriptions, brief dialogues with the few disheartened NPCs of the world, and postulation about these items and people based where you encounter them. A significant chunk of the story in the Souls games is written in the player's own head through assumption and speculation as to why you might have found something somewhere with a description about someone. For example, Why was this particular shield, which belonged to a member of the Dark Wraiths, in a church of a small town filled with slug-people? Was the owner a slug person, or did the slug people kill him?
Since the story isn't told the traditional way via cutscenes and lengthy dialogues with different characters who summarize the plot and your objectives on a regular basis, it's up to the player to put the pieces together. However, doing that and wanting to do that depends heavily on the quality of the item descriptions, the brief dialogues, and the cohesive ability of everything to make sense of the world in which these things reside. I came to expect a lot from the games, which is why Dark Souls II was something of a disappointment in this regard when it came out a couple of years ago. It had very few memorable characters, outside some of the fun boss battles, and the items lacked much flavor to their descriptions. The world itself seemed almost devoid of personality in most spots, excluding the path up to the Iron Fortress and the Drangleic Castle. Dark Souls III, however, has restored my faith.
Image: Bandai Namco | Don't worry, this isn't Dark Souls II
I have found that Dark Souls III, despite being significantly shorter than its immediate predecessor, is a deeply connected world. There are numerous characters who seem to have a connection to one another that is more than just a single dimension. The "quests" of the various characters you encounter are much more involved than ever before, with some of the outcomes even influencing the end of the game. It's also a world that's filled with excessive references to the previous games—which can be a little cheap since they're reusing assets and cutting some corners in development—but developers make those references work to further build upon this massive universe they've created. There is enough new stuff to make this world stand out as its own thing and make sense.
Image: Bandai Namco
As I mentioned in the Initial Impressions, there are also several constant themes throughout the game, most notably the symbols of death and headstones everywhere. There's also a theme of decadence and its various definitions. The world itself is filled with lavish, extravagant architecture, and the legendary heroes and villains of the land are surrounded by both luxuries and decay. These themes, the item descriptions, the dialogue, and the frequent visual references to different parts of the land make up the connective tissue that helps make Dark Souls III's world much more interesting than I had originally anticipated. It's a shame that the game is so short in comparison to the others, as I would have liked to have seen how far the game could have gone with an even bigger landscape to play through.
Gameplay
If you've played any of the Souls games, it should come as no surprise as to how this game controls and plays. Much like Madden, Assassin's Creed, and other game franchises that have seen numerous releases over time, Dark Souls III isn't making many drastic changes to how everything plays and feels to make sure their fans feel right at home. Players who have come to the series in the past will be able to jump right back in, yet still notice the changes to the mechanics that most other people wouldn't regard as significant. It's not reinventing the wheel, merely sanding down the edges and improving upon some fundamental pieces to make the ride a little smoother and faster.
Image: Bandai Namco
The best things that I think Dark Souls II did for the franchise were to increase the speed and depth of the combat, improve New Game +, and improve the user interface. Weapons were slightly more versatile and your character could move swiftly through combat, more so than ever before. Dark Souls III manages to keep much of the combat momentum and versatility its immediate predecessor introduced, with a few minor changes of its own, though it takes something of a step back in terms of the New Game + experience and the interface.
Image: Bandai Namco
The movement speed of your characters and enemies is still fast by Souls game standards; in some ways, I'd say it's even faster than DS II. You're still allowed to wear a ton of armor and quickly roll to and fro in a combat scenario with a massive weapon in hand. The weapons still have a great deal of variety in their attacks. However, the ability to wield two different weapons at the same time with a special stance, which was introduced in DS II, has been removed and instead replaced with specific weapon sets that are designed to be wielded with both hands. I'm sure this helped cut down on testing and development time in some ways, though that level of versatility was something that really stood out to me in the last game. The mixing and matching of different weapons and how that could have an effect on your strategy was undoubtedly a big development task that most players probably didn't utilize much, myself included. Nonetheless, I was sad to see it go.
To help maintain some of the combat versatility and bring some new ideas to the gameplay, the developers added something else to the combat. The biggest change that Dark Souls III brings is the reintroduction of the blue "magic" bar. Demon's Souls had this bar, which was depreciated every time you cast a spell as a magic or faith user. Dark Souls, however, has existed without this video game staple up till now with III's re-institution of the familiar mechanic. Except, this time it doesn't just govern magic abilities. To make their mechanic apply to all players, the bar also depreciates when any special move is used. Every weapon, except most shields, has a special ability that uses some of the energy in this meter when held in the off-hand or in two hands. Some are an attack, some are a buff, and some do combo set-ups. As a melee character, there's finally a reason to be concerned about the mana bar!
I've found that I still don't end up using the special abilities too often against enemy NPCs, but they have still been particularly useful in precarious situations. However, the main area that these abilities affect is the player vs player scenarios. They add a helpful bit of unpredictability when dealing with players online. If you don't know the skills of certain weapons, you might be caught off-guard by an invader's strategy. The fact that it only requires your weapon to be in your off-hand, in two hands, or even with a shield that allows you to use the ability of your main weapon provides a fair share of opportunities to surprise the other player in ways that simply couldn't have been done in previous installments. It's surprising that such a simple change could have such a big impact on the combat
Image: Bandai Namco | If I lay here... If I just lay here....
I found myself a little bummed when I started a new game. I was expecting to see some of the neat quirks the developers had used in the previous Souls game, only to find nearly the exact same experience waiting for me. In DS II, when you started a new game with the same character, new enemies, which you had never even seen in the entirety of the game, were sprinkled throughout the areas to create an element of surprise to the experience. There were also unique boss battles that took advantage of multiplayer invasions in extremely interesting ways, making for a much harder, but also exciting experience. None that was present here. The developers took a small hint by adding more soul items to the playthrough so you could stock up on extra souls, and by dropping a few rings with improved properties in new spots, but largely the experience was the exact same.
As for the interface changes I mentioned, I don't think it's all bad. In fact, From Software has proven to be more and more competent with their PC versions of the games with each release. There are numerous options available to change the presentation of the game and tweak the quality of the display. They've even added a feature to remove the HUD if you just want to see what's on the screen without all that video game information in the way. The main thing I'm a little bummed about is how the item menus have gone back to completely covering the screen and making the process of equipping your character more like it was in the original DS. It's a nitpicky complaint, but I'm just surprised that they took away the smart decision they made in DS II for the sake of making sure that you saw the stats/description of the item you have selected. For the first time, maybe the developers wanted new players to know there was a story to this game.
It might very well be that they were more conscious than ever about how to make the game more accessible to the general player type. The Souls games started out being very niche and only approachable to a certain set of players who got something out of the vague storytelling, daunting difficulty, and unique mechanics. As the series has grown, the developers have admitted time and time again about how they're trying to make the game more approachable to a wider audience. I consider Dark Souls III to be the most approachable and transparent of any of the games.
Image: Bandai Namco
That isn't to say the game is easy. I've still died numerous times to the bosses (one in particular...), ambushes, and typical mean tropes of the game's design. However, there are small alterations to the game that have made the game "easier" than any of the previous games. For one thing, there are tons of bonfire checkpoints in close proximity to one another or adjacent to boss arenas. The proximity from one to another was almost absurd in comparison to the long treks with which I was so familiar. I have to assume at some point when the DLC comes out, these extraneous bonfires will lead to paths that are yet unseen.
There is also a way that most enemies behaved in the game that I found a little too consistent. Enemies would be staggered or stunned by your attacks, regardless of what weapon you were using. They could sometimes come back at you between hits, but I often found that this could easily be dodged, making most enemy encounters relatively easy. This behavioral pattern wasn't as common in the past games. There were plenty of enemies who could take the hit without so much as a wince, but now, it was rare to find those types of enemies and they usually had something else you could exploit without much difficulty. If you're the type who thought the difficulty of the previous games was perfect, you'll likely be a little disappointed here because the challenge is certainly not what it once was. Nonetheless, there's still plenty of content to dig into and you're still likely to die the first time doing so.
Presentation
This is the best that Dark Souls has ever looked. From the physics of the clothes and the way your various capes swish and flow in the wind as you move, to the thematic and gruesome detail in the environment, to the amount of customization you can add to your character, the physical presentation of Dark Souls has come a long way. Dark Souls is still a good-looking game and even Demon's Souls has its merits, but there was always a cloudiness to the view that prevented you from being able to see everything in crisp detail. Not the case in Dark Souls III.
Image: Bandai Namco
For one thing, the character customization feels actually worthwhile to me. The Souls games have been known for their extensive lists of face sliders to fully customize your character's facial features and create the ideal protagonist, but never before have I felt like those sliders really shaped the character's features in a way that's meaningful. There were dozens of face sliders in Demon's Souls, but the overall change they brought to the characters was pretty minimal. As the series has gone on, the amount you can change and fine-tune in a person's face has gotten more and more advanced. Now, I'd say it looks so good that I'd rather not wear any head armor so as not to cover up my sculpture.
Even when you're done sculpting your character, however, the presentation does not stop wowing. When you come across the first bonfire of the game, you're greeted with the first of many awe-inspiring moments in the game. The original DS had a few of those moments, namely upon first arriving in Anor Londo. The second was generally lacking in those big "wow" moments. Dark Souls III spares no expense in making sure to give you some good views of the world around you. There were several instances where upon entering a new area it would fill me with awe or dread at how large this place was and what I was going to have to endure to reach the end of it.
Image: Bandai Namco
Just looking at it based solely on the environment would be enough to show the developers brought their A-game with creativity. There are numerous viewpoints throughout the levels that allow you to see the areas you've visited in the past or are going to visit at some point. The item descriptions include well-written prose that makes clever use of language and they reference these same areas to further build upon the world. The constant references to the different places through both text and visual identification help make the world feel more alive. This was something the original Dark Souls had in spades.
Of course, cinematic angles and awe-inspiring shots are nothing if the art style isn't there. For the most part, it is. I'm a big fan of Gothic architecture, of which there is plenty on display here. I'm also a fan of the weird Lovecraftian and Bloodborne environments and creatures they put in this game. There are some truly horrific enemies you have to face in some very interesting areas.
Image: Bandai Namco
The area where the experience is a little cheapened is how so many things feel recycled throughout the game. It's not that the Souls games, up to this point, had never reused assets in the past, or even had particular enemy types appear well after they're welcome. However, it seems like the effort behind some of the designs was a little less inspired. It might just be that even I am experiencing some Dark Souls fatigue and I'm picking up on all the subtleties that I never noticed before, but when I found a familiar item from a previous Souls game, I couldn't help but feel like they were cutting corners. It just felt like they were throwing something familiar in there as a shortcut and as a method of fan service. Even the creatures in this game felt a little stale. They behaved and reacted so similarly to one another when I fought them, it was rare to come across a creature that would do something surprising, or just take a hit without getting stunned. Then again, they still had some crazy creature designs to make up for the less interesting ones.
THE F*CK IS THAT?!
Even with the bits and pieces of the presentation that felt too familiar or slightly cheapened, the presentation of Dark Souls III helped elevate my opinion of it significantly. The music wasn't quite as memorable as it was in Demon's Souls or the original Dark Souls, but it still had some good moments that made me feel much more involved in the action. It wasn't nearly as challenging or as surprising as the series has proven to be in the past, but the item descriptions, the overall writing, the voice acting, the environment and enemy designs, and the music all painted a brilliantly melancholic picture of a horrific and angry world on life support that simply refused to die.
TL;DR (Conclusion)
Dark Souls III is a great game that I'm eager to beat over and over again, like the original Dark Souls and its predecessor, Demon's Souls. However, there are certainly some qualities to this entry that keep it from reaching the heights other games in the series have been able to achieve. Not to mention, it also has lost some of the challenge in its gameplay that made the victories so satisfying and rewarding in the past. The series has attempted to become more approachable to a general audience and undoubtedly succeeded in certain ways, but it has compromised itself a little in the process. I deeply enjoyed my time with it and I know there is a lot more for me to uncover with the help of a guide and wiki. If you are coming to this game for the same sort of challenge and euphoric satisfaction of beating a difficult game, I'd say you might be better off sticking with the others or looking at the Souls-inspired indie games. BUT, if you want another Souls story told in the Souls way with the tropes, themes, and tones that make for a poetically depressing and brilliant experience, Dark Souls III is a solid choice.
Image: Bandai Namco
As it stands here is my list of Souls games in the order I most enjoy:
Dark Souls (original)
Demon's Souls
Dark Souls III
Dark Souls II
Games not eligible for this list because I have yet to play them:
Bloodborne
Dark Souls II (Re-Release) : Scholar of the First Sin
Lords of the Fallen (Not a Souls game but sort of)
Do you agree or disagree? Tell me what you think in the comments below or on Facebook!
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