Ah, Dark Souls. You’re always there for me. Sometimes you get tired of beating games or winning at anything and Dark Souls III is here to slap you around a bit, just like you wanted. Dark Souls is the 5th game in the series, despite the III attached to the name. DSIII introduces a number of new mechanics and revisits some older ones. I’ve put around twelve hours into DSIII and I’ve got some thoughts, so let’s jump right in.

Woof. Could you get a little darker, Dark Souls III? I think I can still feel something like hope and love. — Woof. Could you get a little darker, *Dark Souls III*? I think I can still feel something like hope and love.

DSIII has a plot as barebones as the rest of the games in the series. We’re questing through “Lothric” this time around, trying to find and bring back the Lords of Cinder to sit on their thrones, for some reason. Do we even care at this point? It’s all suitably epic and morose and makes me realize how awesome of a word cinder is. The game starts with you literally crawling your way out of the earth, which I appreciate. How many games let you play as a zombie? You move through the introductory area and find yourself at the Firelink Shrine, which is appropriately sad, confusing, and useful.

The Shrine is well designed, which is good given the amount of time you need to spend here. You can see the five Thrones of the Lords of Cinder. Not quite sure what they did or why the thrones are here, but hey, let's find out.

The Fire Keeper who lives there is your only method of leveling up, ala Dark Souls II. Andre, the blacksmith from Dark Souls is in the shrine as well, available from the get go. This sets the tone for the rest of the game. Bits and pieces are taken from DS1 and DSII and changed around a bit to make something that’s starting to feel very similar. After some exploration, you’ll be off to the High Wall of Lothric to start your quest in earnest.

The combat is DSIII is definitely the fastest of the three Dark Souls games, which is a nice change. Faster combat allows for a more enjoyable aggressive playstyle and a more nuanced defensive playstyle; it’s hard to turtle up behind a shield when five enemies are hitting you at once. The parry and riposte mechanics are back to their Dark Souls 1 style, which I personally appreciate. The faster combat means it’s a little harder to riposte than it used to be, but still very much an option.

Bows are usually niche use weapons, but I think I'll try for a bow only run at some point.

There’s a wide variety of weapons to use, from daggers to whips to halberds, all of which are viable for the whole game. In a twist on Dark Souls II’s power stance, each weapon now has a “skill”, which usually involve a new way to move or attack. The rapier, for instance, let’s you jump back and then stab and enemy from afar, or deliver multiple piercing attacks in quick succession. I really like the weapon skills and, though I’ll miss power stance, this mode adds a new dimension to combat that keeps the formula fresh.

Your character will glow around the edges when Embered, which is a really cool effect.

Parallel to combat, the “hollowing” system has is similar to the one in Dark Souls II. You can use “embers” to become human again, restore your health, and open yourself up to multiplayer content. Unlike DS1, you can use embers anywhere, which is a good mechanic that the designers kept from DSII.

DSIII came out fairly recently, so there’s still a lot of multiplayer activity. I put down my summon sign and got summoned within five minutes every time. I’ve only been invaded twice, but I tend not to ember up until I’m right about to fight the boss. The online play is way smoother than DS1; it’s actually possible to parry other people online.

You can summon more people this time around, which is pretty cool. You can also totally mess with invaders, as seen here.

I haven’t done a lot of exploration into the covenant system in DSIII, so I can’t speak to that, but I’ve definitely seen some new covenants that I haven’t heard of before. I’ve seen some kind of purple echoes that are attached to certain messages, which is very interesting.

The enemy design is interesting and enjoyable, but not as unique as previous games. All the enemies seem to fall into archetypes that are repeated in every level. Each level (so far) ties its general look to the look of its inhabitants. The High Wall of Lothric has dragons, knights, and soldiers. The Undead Settlement has workers, clerics, and slaves and so on. You know where you are just by looking at the enemies, which I appreciate. The bosses are similarly well designed. Dark Souls II came under criticism for the design of its bosses, most of whom were just people in armor. Dark Souls III appears to be taking a much more classic approach, where each boss is represented by its “level.”

Vordt, meet the player. Player, meet Vordt. He'll be mashing you into a fine paste with his gigantic mace.

The first boss is a special favorite of mine. He moves and attacks very quickly, despite his size. He reminds me a lot of the Taurus Demon in Dark Souls in his placement and usage. The Taurus demon is designed to teach new players that they can’t just turtle up behind a shield and hope to block all the enemies attacks; instead they have to think in a more circular fashion, use their environment, and perhaps even get a little too close for comfort.

While the combat is very enjoyable, the level design has declined in quality. The levels in DSIII are very linear, much like DSII. You have the ability to teleport from bonfires as soon as you start the game, so I think the developers felt freer to expand the size of the typical level. Running from one end to the other takes a lot longer than it did in DSI, which is a little annoying.

There also doesn’t appear to be as many connections between levels as you found in DS1, which seems like a step backwards to me. The world of DS1 was very interesting because of how close it all felt. You were doing grand things, fighting monsters fifteen times your size, but the scope of the world felt understandable and manageable. The levels of DSIII look lovely and are fun to explore, but getting through a whole level takes more time than it should.

Your Estus flask has changed for the worse as well. In DS1 you had up to 10 uses of your flask at any “kindled” bonfire (20 if you got the Rite of Kindling from a certain boss). In DSII you started with a much lower Estus usage, but you found items to upgrade that soon enough. In DSIII you start with a lower usage, and your Estus is split between the health restoring flask and the Focus Point restoring flask.

You can head to Andre the blacksmith to allot your estus, which is a little odd. Wouldn't the firekeeper have more influence over your Estus flask, seeing as it's restored by bonfires?

The weapon skills mentioned above take focus points, as does magic, pyromancy, and miracles. No longer do these magic skills have a set number of uses, which sounds great on paper, but since you have to split your Estus flask to restore your focus, it gets annoying quick. Any decent sorcerer, cleric, or pyromancer will have more than one spell equipped at any time and since they all draw from the same focus pool, you’ll run out of uses way too fast. I think things would have worked better if your focus slowly regenerated on its own, or if the designers just went with the old system of each spell having a certain number of uses.

While the weapon selected is varied and interesting, there are some serious balance issues in DSIII. Poise doesn’t do anything for some reason. In the older games, Poise was a stat that represented how unlikely you were to be staggered by an enemy attack. Because poise doesn’t do anything, there’s no point to wearing armor other than aesthetics. While armor does offer some defensive bonuses, it’s generally not worth the weight it adds to your character. Faster weapons are overpowered, at least as of the latest patch.

Even the longsword (seen here), previously a solid choice for PvP and PvE, is definitely second to the faster weapons

The rapier, estoc, and katanas just rip through enemies and bosses while the slower weapons, like great axes/swords etc., can’t match the damage output of the lighter weapons. In PvE this isn’t much of a problem, because using an optimal build isn’t really important, but I think the PvP scene will really suffer until some of the other weapon are powered up a bit. I think this will be balanced out in later patches, but for now, stick with the lighter fare.

Worth Playing

Yes.

If you like Dark Souls or Dark Souls II, you’ll like this game. The formula is definitely starting to go stale and issues are popping up, but this game is well designed and fun. Miyazaki-San, the designer of the Souls series has said that this game will be last one and I think that’s good. Far too few people know how to stop when faced with profits.

Hope you liked the piece! Please share and give feedback, if you’ve got the time.