MaxBedlam

Dark Souls III

120.2 hours, 34 of 43 achievements



Finally done with this series. I have to say I expected this one to be a lot better than it is. I would even say this is the worst game in the series.

First I’ll start with the good things. I like how they changed the durability system to the point where nothing will ever break and how they made it possible for you to set yourself to offline via options menu so you don’t have to suffer through constant invasions when you don’t feel like doing PvP. You can also charge your heavy attack now for more damage, which is really great. Addition of weapon arts is a cool feature, but a lot of weapon arts don’t feel like they’re worth using.

So what’s wrong with the game? Well, unlike the previous two games this one is quite linear. The balance is all over the place, it feels to me that they had issues trying to balance things for both PvE and PvP which resulted in a mess. A lot of spells and rings from previous games were nerfed. Some of the new miracles introduced in this game are so weak they’re not worth using at all. One of the worst cases of equipment nerfs is the Havel ring which went from 50% to 15% maximum equipment load in this game, resulting in weight issues which mostly hurt the fashion souls aspect of the game since heavier armors don’t make a huge difference in this game because of the changes to poise and defenses.

Level designs weren’t as interesting and fun to go through like in the previous two games for me. This game also had less bosses than either of the previous two games (DS2 had I think 41 while this one only has 25). Some people say that doesn’t matter because quality is more important than quantity, and I would agree if DS3 actually had good bosses. I didn’t enjoy a single boss fight in this game (unlike in previous games where I had fun with lots of them); at best they were meh and at worst they were tedious to the point where I summoned other players just to be done with it quickly (and as far as I remember I never summoned other players for boss fights in previous two games).

So yeah, overall pretty disappointed with this one but I’m glad that I finished the series.

Trent

The balance is all over the place, it feels to me that they had issues trying to balance things for both PvE and PvP which resulted in a mess.

I’ve never played a Dark Souls game, but I’ve been bit by this phenomenon over the years, particularly in MMOs. I’ve only played a handful, but perfectly reasonable attacks, weapons, combos, items, etc. get nerfed because some guy finds a way to exploit these items in PvP against, say, a particular class. So the nerf affects everybody.

Thanks for the write-up!

IcyGlare

I guess I didn’t notice the nerfs because I didn’t use magic or heavy armor. I agree that the level design wasn’t as good, and the bosses weren’t as fun, as those in DS1, but I didn’t think they were worse than DS2’s. Then again, maybe it depends on the build and/or play style. I’ve been reading complaints that DS2’s bosses were too easy, whereas I thought they were the hardest and very, very tedious, such that it was the only one (of the three Souls games) I didn’t bother to 100%, or even replay.