• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

LTTP: Dark Souls 3 is a triumphant third game

Long story short, Demon's Souls Remake on PS5 opened my eyes and the gates for me to experience the remaining games in the Souls franchise. I'd previously poured heaps of praise for the spectacular Demon's souls Remake and Dark Souls Remastered. I then went on to complete Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First sin which btw is such a damn good sequel to the first Dark Souls game. Two weekends ago I began the fourth(Dark Souls 3 being my fourth souls game to play) and arduous souls journey as I began Dark Souls 3. Let me start off by saying Dark Souls 3 is way harder than DS1 and DS2 combined. DS2's difficulty was more to do with figuring out how and where to proceed, but DS3's difficulty is purely figuring out the boss fights and how to overcome the challenge. The whole world felt disconnected in DS2 when compared to DS1, but DS3 feels more connected slightly less interconnected world when compared to DS1 but connected nonetheless. Thank you EviLore EviLore and a family friend of mine for introducing me to this world of Souls.

Highs
- No re-skinned boss fights which was present in Dark Souls 1, ended up feeling a little padded
-Fantastic DLCs (ringed city + ashes of Ariandel)
-Memorable boss fights
-Amazing soundtrack
-Memorable NPCs
-gratification through progression in a level to light up a bonfire
-Manageable difficulty spikes in the game (maybe because I got a random to help with me the soul of cinder, Sister Friede & Two princes boss fights)
-Helping out randoms with their boss fights. I've helped over 2 dozen randoms in their worlds on their fight against two princes, aldrich, yhorm, soul of cinder, demon prince, great wolf of ariandel, sister friede fights. So damn fun to help out random people in the game

Neutral
-I am noticing bloodborne inspirations to some of the boss fights (character models to boss combat animations), some of the bosses lack their dark souls-ness because of this?
-The need to look up videos to understand the NPCs and the lore, i guess this is inherent to souls games. Wish the game had a glossary or something to read about the characters and its lore.

Up until 6 months ago, I was just a racing game-FPS-TPS-ActionAdventure-OpenWorld games kinda person. But after completing 4 Souls games ever since completing Demon's Souls remake late last year, I feel every other game feels empty in providing the sense of satisfaction you get when doing even the smallest of things in a Souls game.

Now that I've completed the mainline soul's games and my hunger for souls games remain unsatiated, any other game out there that would feel souls like? Also, the reason why I haven't played Bloodborne properly from start to finish is that I am holding off on the 60fps patch of the version. Also, would you all recommend Sekiro? I've heard it's a lot more action-oriented than souls games.
 
Last edited:

martino

Member
There is also multiple little details/qol changes at near every mechanics (tp, flask handling, coop rules etc...)
No level level like tombs of giants (i hate it)
imo this game keeps all the goods and avoid most of the low moments/problems of the other two games
 
Last edited:

regawdless

Banned
Glad you enjoyed it. I liked DS3 a lot, great game. After playing DaS, DS1 and Bloodborne, I didn't find DS3 difficult at all though. Still a lot of fun with some amazing levels and bosses.
 

DelireMan7

Member
Sekiro is really different from the Soulsborne. Extremely action oriented and quite challenging. Personally I find the combat quite redundant in the end. Also doesn't have that cryptic atmosphere.

If you like 2D metroidvania, I suggest Hollow Knight.
I am at the end of my first playthrough and it gives me strong Souls vibes : atmospheric, cryptic story telling, "souls like" NPC and quest (some are hilarious really), challenging and memorable boss fights.
On top of that the soundtrack is a piece of art and gameplay is topnotch. Exploring (and getting loss) its big world map is amazing.

The game just joined Dark Souls and Bloodborne at the top of my "All time favorite game" ranking.
 
Glad you enjoyed it. I liked DS3 a lot, great game. After playing DaS, DS1 and Bloodborne, I didn't find DS3 difficult at all though. Still a lot of fun with some amazing levels and bosses.
I've poured around 55 hours into DS3 so far, thinking about NG+ to go after the paltinum :) and help out randoms
 
Last edited:

whattheduck

Banned
So because of Steam sales etc. I own all three Dark Souls games. My only real exposure to these sort of games was by playing Bloodbourne for about 15 hours, which I enjoyed but never felt compelled to finish.

Is DS3 the best place to start of the three mainline games? People tell me it is overall.
 
Last edited:

Bartski

Gold Member
Sekiro is one of the best things that happened in all of gaming in recent years.

You will get your ass kicked like never before but if you go there first, you'll arrive at Bloodborne as an instant pistol parry god.

Just Do It Shia GIF by MOODMAN
 
So because of Steam sales etc. I own all three Dark Souls games. My only real exposure to these sort of games was by playing Bloodbourne for about 15 hours, which I enjoyed but never felt compelled to finish.

Is DS3 the best place to start of the three mainline games? People tell me it is overall.

I'd say Dark Souls 1 via Dark Souls Remastered is the right way. I started my souls journey thanks to Demon's Souls Remake on PS5. Also the family friend of mine who introduced me to demon's souls remake has said Bloodborne is literal perfection when compared to souls games and he's even bigger From Software fan.
 

Larxia

Member
Dark Souls 3 is the episode I liked the least, by far. It's not a "bad" game, but for me it really wasn't up to the levels of Dark Souls 1 and 2(yes), which I replayed lot of times, but I stopped Dark Souls 3 after finishing it once.

I didn't like the lack of balance. The game is a lot faster and kind of floatier than the previous games, it has the speed of Bloodborne, but it's not the same gameplay as bloodborne, and it feels weird. And because it's so fast, your weight has almost no impact at all, and it creates a huge lack of balance if you are someone like me who mainly play dexterity builds with light weight characters. If you go into pvp in dark souls 3, someone with a very heavy armor and weight, will be almost as fast as you as a super light dex build.
There was absolutely no advantage in playing a character based on light weight and speed, the game felt like it was only made for brute raw force, and it also led to a big lack of build variety, especially compared to Dark Souls 2.

I was also disappointed by the level design, a lot of people complained about this for Dark Souls 2, being more linear, but Dark Souls 3 is the same, travelling to different places is often done by teleport / specific travelling scripts like elevator and such. It didn't feel as open and as interesting as Dark Souls 1.

I always see a lot of hate for Dark Souls 2, but I'll absolutely never understand it. Yes some stuff in Dark Souls 2 doesn't make sense (like the poison mill area leading to the hell area, I don't know what they were thinking), but as a whole I think it's a really great game, and it was for me more memorable than 3. Dark Souls 2 has the best gameplay in the series, the amount of builds possible was insane, such diversity in its gameplay, and it had the best PVP in the series, if you are into that.

I would rank the games like this:
1 - Dark Souls 1. Best world and level design, the most immersive episode.
2 - Dark Sousl 2. Best gameplay.
3 - Dark Souls 3. Best visuals obviously, but eveyrthing else felt like a downgrade to me compared to the previous ones.
 
Last edited:

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Amazing game. Especially with ringed city.
It does ignore armor a bit and tends towards faster roll combat. Ds2 is still the best mechanically
 
Last edited:
Still a virgin of the genre here, not for a lack of trying here and there.

Will likely pickup Demons PS5 at some point to try again.

When you do pick it up and in all likelihood you might end up picking up all three Dark Souls games, let me know and we could coop all four games (including demon's souls remake on PS5)
 
Last edited:

Arachnid

Member
It's my favorite in the trilogy. It easily had the best boss fights and soundtracks in the trilogy. These combined with lore and combat are the most important aspects of the series IMO.

Dark Souls 1 has it in lore (though I LOVED how it built on the first games lore; both of them destroyed DS2 here), character NPCs (though Ludleth, Anri, Greirat, and Yuri were all great; all pale in comparison to Sunbro and Sigmeyer), and very arguably world design though I preferred DS3 here (I prefered the interconnected levels/areas to the entire world; waaaaaaay too much backtracking in 1 for me). Dark Souls 2 really just does powerstancing which is its only advantage over the other 2. Powerstancing is fantastic, though I still prefer the combat in 3 over 2 overall (all the unique weapon arts, tons more weapon and spell variety than the other games, faster pace; still, all of them are similar enough here that I can't really knock any all that much).

Ringed City is also up there with Old Hunters as some of the best and meatiest DLC they've ever put out. Painted World, on the other hand, has hands down the best boss fight in the entire series.
 
Last edited:

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
Finished it recently. Objetively the best in the series imo but I just couldn't bring myself to have the same passion for it. Souls fatigue kicked in real hard.

Every newcomer I would recommend to start with Dark Souls 1 and then immediately go over to Dark Souls 3. It basically perfects everything part 1 had done.
 
Finished it recently. Objetively the best in the series imo but I just couldn't bring myself to have the same passion for it. Souls fatigue kicked in real hard.

Every newcomer I would recommend to start with Dark Souls 1 and then immediately go over to Dark Souls 3. It basically perfects everything part 1 had done.

Dark Souls 2 is an awesome game, would definitely not recommend skipping 2 :(
 

Shmunter

Member
When you do pick it up and in all likelihood you might end up picking up all three Dark Souls games, let me know and we could coop the all four games (including demon's souls remake on PS5)
Haha, talk about hitting the ground running. Thanks for the offer.

I own ds3, maybe even ds2 if I’m not wrong. Also have bloodborne
 

skit_data

Member
DS3 has pretty much all the good stuff from both the earlier entries but i wish they kept the power stancing system from DS2. DS3s lore is also a little too loose and flimsy IMO, too many nonsensical homages to previous entries (Storm Ruler in Yhorms place, anyone?). DS3 has a washed out and grey tone and i know it has some lore significance but man, its very grey.

As someone else said: Hollow Knight is a real gem, It might seem too cute and cuddly but it really has a resemblence to the Souls-series in challenge and tone.

Edit: Also, alsmost forgot: the poise system in DS3 is too underpowered. I liked the one in DS1 waaay better.
 
Last edited:

nkarafo

Member
My favorite souls game so far.

Also the best looking. Sure, Bloodborne may look more detailed in places but DS3 has far more variety and areas with different art direction.
 

Roufianos

Member
I went straight from Demon's Souls Remake to Dark Souls III and loved it. Definitely one of the best games of last gen.

Had to call help for the last boss though, what a nightmare.
 

luffie

Member
I agree OP.

I always believe tha DS1 benefits from nostalgia, but DS3 is so much more polished and customizable. It's very hard for me to go back to DS1 after playing 3.

If you don't mind 2d platformer, Hollow Knight is a very great metroidvania with some Souls vibe, as well as great bosses.

As for Sekiro, remember not to approach it like Souls. You are a master shinobi, and you are expected to fight like one. No rolling and dodging, face your opponents like a shinobi, and you will be rewarded with some of the best boss fights in gaming.
 

skit_data

Member
I agree that it is a good game but would still recommend any newcomer to avoid it in order to avoid series fatigue by the time they reach 3.
Its also very hard, at least the DLCs. But they are also very fun, DS2 is a wierd one. The Crown of the Sunken King is almost Zelda-esque at times, having to manipulate pillars to jump across and stuff!
 
Now that I've completed the mainline soul's games and my hunger for souls games remain unsatiated, any other game out there that would feel souls like? Also, the reason why I haven't played Bloodborne properly from start to finish is that I am holding off on the 60fps patch of the version. Also, would you all recommend Sekiro? I've heard it's a lot more action-oriented than souls games.

The Surge 1 & 2
Nioh 1 & 2
Mortal Shell
Ashen
Salt and Sanctuary
 
Man there needs to be an FPS boost update for DS3 on the SX, then my Fromsoft collection would be perfect.

DS3 is probably my least favorite of the 3 games but it's still great. I liked the Metroidvania level design of 1 the most with the mega-man esque choose your path of 2 being an alright alternative. DS3 was the most linear, so the sense of exploration was lessened a bit, but it was still tightly designed. One of the best trilogies out there for sure.

Sekiro is fantastic, and my favorite From game since Dark Souls 1. It's the blend of Souls, Ninja Gaiden, and MGR that I didn't know I needed in my life until I played it.
 

cireza

Banned
30fps on Xbox

Dark Souls 3 loses the highly connected world and replaces it by a few branches. Very disappointing in that regard.
 
Last edited:

DeaconOfTheDank

Gold Member
If you like dex builds, then Bloodborne and Sekiro are gonna rock your world OP.

Bloodborne - master the rally system and perfect the step-dodge

Sekiro - master the deflect/parry system
 

ClosBSAS

Member
nah, its not at all. ds3 is a reskin of dark souls 1, its terribly easy compared to the other ones. after how awesome dark souls 2 was, 3 was a step backwards in almost every single way. only memorable shit was the nameless king...besides that it had nothing else memorable about it.
 
Absolutely love DS3. It’s both a celebration of what came before and a return to the roots. You always hear people parrot the line that the game is a “copy of Dark Souls” but I find it pulls the most from Demon’s. Almost like they wanted to go full circle.

Anyways, wonderful game, and no matter what the OP picks as the next title, it’s going to be a great ride!
 

Graciaus

Member
So because of Steam sales etc. I own all three Dark Souls games. My only real exposure to these sort of games was by playing Bloodbourne for about 15 hours, which I enjoyed but never felt compelled to finish.

Is DS3 the best place to start of the three mainline games? People tell me it is overall.
You should start with the 1st but they are all different in some ways. Ignore anyone who says 2 is bad.
 

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
I really like DS3, but some of the bosses were far to fast for the combat style. They act like Bloodborne bosses with DS slow character movement, which makes the game arbitrarily difficult.
 
Nice OP!

I also got my Soul on fire because of Demon's Souls Remake. I'm playing DS3 at the moment after finishing Demon's and Dark Souls Remastered.
Playstation 5 made me love From games and I haven't played too many games besides them on it.

DS3 is easily one of the best games I've played. I agree that it is pretty hard compared to the previous games. Demon's Souls with a pure strength character was also pretty tough at some points.

I think you should definitely play Sekiro. I'm starting that fucker after I finish DS3 and if Bloodborne doesn't get an update.
I'll play DS2 in the distant future.

OP have you considered playing Nioh series?
I played the first game a some time ago but got frustrated with it, but it was before Souls/From fly bit me. I think I should play it again.
 

Fbh

Member
Dark Souls 3 is great.
It has a bit of a "greatest hits" vibe with some recycled ideas, and I also think the first 2 had better armor designs, but it has the best combat, some of my favorite bosses and some of my favorite locations in the franchise.


Definitely play Sekiro. Just be aware that while it's by the same studio and has some similar elements, it's not really a souls game. Most negative comments about it seem to come from people that just wanted Samurai Dark Souls and were disappointed it was something else. But it has amazing combat and the same great world and level design that FROM has become known for.
 
Definitely the worst of the three Dark Souls games, imo, for many of the reasons already listed. Floaty, no weight to fights, so many reused locations, the de-emphasizing of various gameplay types and heavily leaning the player towards dodging, the worst PVP of the entire series, worst Fashion-souls of the entire series.

Skipping DS2 is heresy.
 

SpiceRacz

Member
DS3 is a masterpiece and I agree - everything else feels empty in comparison. Nothing else like it.

The souls-like games that I've played are decent, but none of them quite scratch that itch. Definitely play Sekiro and Nioh.
 

Pejo

Member
After replaying all 3 at least 3 times each, I still think Dark Souls: Prepare to Die is the best. Best atmosphere, invading was the most fun, and it had the best world of the 3. I wish there was a version of PTD that had the last half of the game actually finished. Remaster I hated for the PVP changes and the lighting that somehow got worse (than the og modded pc version).

My biggest problem with 3 was the rolling mechanic. They made it too effective and forced you into using rolls instead of shields for most of the harder encounters. PVP was an absolute chore with roll spams and no real good way to punish it. Basically all PVP was squad based and R1 spam/Roll spam over and over. The bosses felt overdesigned in both moveset and visual appearance. There was a shitload of content though, and not every boss was "large human knight", which is a plus over DS2.

Ironically though it's my least memorable out of the 3.
 
Top Bottom