First you should know that I’m a big fan of the Dark Souls series. So I was really happy when it finally was the 12th of April and I got my hands on a copy of Dark Souls III.Dark Souls III is, like the previous Dark Souls games, a third person action game were the gamer gets to explore a dark gritty realm. This time around you get to explore the realm of Lothric. In the world you get to fight a lot of different enemies from small and agile knights to humongous monstrosities who really get your heart rate up. A good change is the fighting pace. DS III is much faster than the previous DS Games and comes closer to last years From Software Playstation 4 exclusive Bloodborne, though it still feels like a DS game. DS III isn’t for everyone though, this game truly is for the gamers that like to be challenged and want to pain themselves into a long enduring trip of trial and error.
When I went into the world as a Dark Souls veteran I was worried how easy the start was. Though as the game progresses it gets the familiar Dark Souls toughness and I was once again satisfied with the challenge. When comparing DS III to the other DS games it feels more fluent and because of that you gain more control over your character. For players who are new to the DS games it now actually is a good game to get into. There actually is a good learning curve now, better than in the previous DS games. Where you could feel lost at times. In the previous DS game you lost a percentage of your health pool when you died. In DS III that no longer happens instead though you can chose to use an “ember” to increase your health pool to be able to endure more. There still is the fact that you can lose the souls you’ve collected when you die. As before you can reclaim your souls if you are able to get back to them without dying. Checkpoints are still in the form of bonfires, which still allow you to travel from and to.
At the beginning of the game you create your character and choose your class. You can choose fast rogue like classes, mighty warrior classes were you use a shield with strength or magic classes with spells, curses, pyromancy or miracles. Just like other DS games the class you pick only determines were your first attribute points are allocated. When playing you can still choose to go a different direction and change the style you play to become a hybrid with both magic and sword play. With that DS III has a playstyle for everyone.
What really sets this game apart from others is the exploration part. The feeling you get when you are exploring a new area with only have one estus flask (healing potion) left and don’t know if you can reach the next bonfire is truly unique, suspenseful and really gets your blood pumping. The different areas in the game really are amazing and give you the feeling that you are in a dark fantasy kingdom. What also is really cool is the that when you’re just playing the game and look in the distance you might see an epic castle were your journey will take you next. One play through is probably not enough to find and see everything there is in the game. You can go new game + for that and reset the world and increase the difficulty and get cooler and more unique gear, that wasn’t available in the first play through.
When exploring you come across a lot of weapons and other items. They come in the form of drops, chests or in secret areas in the game. There are a lot of unique weapons to find with which you can wreak havoc. Every weapon feels different with different kinds of move sets and different strengths. A new thing about the weapons is that you can use force points to perform a special damaging strike with the weapon.
After facing most challenging enemies in a area you will face the boss in order to progress to the next area. The bosses in Dark Souls are all truly unique and have their own backstory and can be a real pain to defeat. Some can be so challenging that they seem impossible. If you played Bloodborne some bosses might feel familiar due to a similar moveset. But that’s definitely did not bother mein the world of DS. The feeling you get when you finally defeat a boss where you were stuck on is rewarding on its own and truly worth the effort.
That and the exploration of the mysterious realm of Lothric can gives enough incentive to keep on playing and try and find every little secret there is in the game. This game truly is one of the best looking games on the playstation 4. The only issue I encountered is that sometimes the framerate drops to around 10 but that didn’t get me out of the game. One play through will easily take around 40 hours or around 100 hours if you try to find all the secrets. All in all Dark Souls III is an amazing game for veteran players and new players!
Positives
– The mysterious and creepy world.
– The feeling you get when exploring
– More control over your character! More fluent combat.
– Amazing challenging boss fights!
Negatives
– Framerate drops sometimes occur.
