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Better Late Than Never Review: Dark Souls 3


When the first Dark Souls came out I got the worst pitch of it from my roommate that I could have gotten. If you die progress resets?  Intentionally tough and/or unfair mechanics?  I remember shaking my head at the notion. Why play something like that when I had Halo?  That even had multiplayer.

Years later once there had been a few more and the hype train started I finally sat down and got to playing. Immediately I realized this was the worst kind of game for me. Not that it's bad, oh no. In fact It's rather good actually. The problem for me is the desire to and ability in the game to maximize your stats perfectly.  Dark Souls as a series made a lot of unique choices and for the most part they all paid off. This week we got to play the newest one.

Dark Souls 3 is the latest and apparently last game in the series. This time around the player is "unkindled" rather than undead. I'll admit to actual liking this setup a bit better since it made more sense to me story-wise but I've never been able to follow the Dark Souls plots all that well anyway.

Your questing to find the Lords of Cinder and as you progress you fight enemies, bosses, and find better equipment for yourself. The game feels distilled in that there some features from DS1 and some from DS2.  If what I said about the series in the second paragraph is true than Dark Souls 3 in the culmination of those choices. You start off being able to travel by bonfire and you level up not at a bonfire but back at the hub location with a strange woman. There's sneaky enemies, pushover ones, tough ones, and some well-crafted bosses. Most of the same items return with a few smart new ones.

This isn't to say that DS3 doesn't do anything new. Purple summon signs are an interesting addition.  I really like the idea of taking a chance when you summon somebody into your game. Speed of attack is also king this time. Even after I found the mighty halberd I ended up switching back to the starting long sword and stapling some titinaite to it.

The good:
-improved multiplayer.
-a good mix of the features and mechanics that worked from 1 and 2

The bad:
-fast weapons > traditionally good dark souls weapons.
-some features are more complex than in previous titles.

You'll notice that most of the good/bad is in comparison to previous titles in the series. This is both the strength and weakness of Dark Souls 3. Like Assassins Creed Syndicate we discussed earlier this year this is a game targeted at fans of the series.  There's a bit of tutorial but the game seems to know that if your playing this you played the others. The upshot of this is that the design is setup not just to surprise players, but to surprise series veterans. At the end of the day the game is the same kind of Dark Souls action we've all come to break out controllers over. What can I say, it's a Dark Souls game.

Dark Souls 3 then gets a solid recommendation to any fan of the series and a equally solid go-play-the-first-one-before-at-least to everyone else.

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