Dark Souls III Review

Right, well its time for another review and apologies for being so quiet on the review front of late as I've been busy with other things with one namely being the subject of this post and that is the action role play game, Dark Souls III.

Dark Souls III is supposed to be the last game in the Souls series, so given its high quality predecessors this game would have a lot to live up to but does it???  Well let's find out.

And below I will mention a little about the story but not too much but for the sake of it, I will issue the usual warning...

PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD! BUT NOT TOO MANY!!

STORY

So, I will quote a bit of the story line from Wikipedia just to save myself a bit of time...

"Set in the Kingdom of Lothric, a bell has rung to signal that the First Flame, responsible for maintaining the Age of Fire, is dying out. As has happened many times before, the coming of the Age of Dark produces the undead: cursed beings that rise up after death. The Age of Fire can be prolonged with the linking of the fire, a ritual in which great lords and heroes sacrifice their souls to rekindle the First Flame. However, Prince Lothric, the chosen linker for this age, has abandoned his duty and instead chooses to watch the flame die from afar.

The Ashen One (your playable character) an Undead who failed to become a Lord of Cinder and thus called an Unkindled, rises and must link the fire by returning Prince Lothric and the defiant Lords of Cinder to their thrones in Firelink Shrine..."

THOUGHTS

As a sequel and what is a conclusion to the series, Dark Souls III is an excellent and gripping game similar to its predecessors even if it doesn't quite reach the heights of the previous two games, its still a great challenge and will provide players with many hours of fun and frustration! I've still not quite completed the game as of yet as I write this review but I am certainly quite far into the game and in some ways its the most challenging game of the whole series so far.

It also makes quite a few references to the previous games throughout and brings back a few things that were missing from Dark Souls II, so it stays more faithful in a way to the first game than the second.  Despite this though, the game has plenty of new features and challenges to work through, which I will get to as the review goes on.

GAMEPLAY BASICS

The gameplay mechanics here are very similar to the first two games with the usual third person perspective in use here and your character do the usual running, jumping, attacking etc but I will mention more about that later. Your character has a similar inventory system as before in Dark Souls II where you can access your equipment and items. The HUD (heads-up display) is also similar with a red bar for health and green bar for stamina but this time round there is a blue bar, which is for what's known as "Focus Points" which are reserved for casting spells and carrying out special moves with your weapons. Focus points or "FP" also featured in the first game in the series, Demon Souls (the predecessor to Dark Souls).

Throughout the game you will also be able to upgrade your various stats such as your vigour (health), endurance, strength, intelligence and faith. These stats can be upgraded with the number of souls that you claim from fallen enemies and the requirement becomes higher each time you level up. However not all the choices of character have the same starting stats as they will be based on their different skillsets, e.g. a warrior's main stats will fall under strength and endurace whereas a sorcerer would rely more on intelligence and a cleric could be a mixture of faith and intelligence.

Similar to the previous games, the player will also rest at bonfires, which act as checkpoints throughout the game and through the main bonfire at Firelink Shrine, the player can also upgrade their health recovery items, Estus Flasks at the bonfire with the help of additional items (known as Estus Flask Shards). The shards are spread throughout the game and can be obtained as the player progresses, which will see them end up with 15 Estus flasks in total. Estus flasks this time around are a little different as with the introduction of the FP system, you also get blue coloured flasks called Ashen Estus Flasks, which will restore your Focus Points for casting spells and using specific weapon skill moves. The player can also through Andri, allot their estus flasks between using one for restoring health and another for your focus points.


WEAPONS

The game also has a very similar number of weapons to the first two DS games with a large selection available such as swords, bows, axes, halberds, spears, throwing knives and firebombs in addition to sheilds and armour. All the weapons and shields can be upgraded through the game's blacksmith, Andri of Astora (who also appeared in the first Dark Souls) at Firelink Shrine (also from DS1!) which he will do via the use of different types of material known as titanite, which come in different shapes and sizes. The player will also have to meet certain strength and dexterity requirements to successfully wield these weapons, which they can. However this time around you can no longer get your armour upgraded unlike in the previous games, which is a strange move I have to stay but well hey ho.

Of course the game also features options as before for sorcery, pyromancy and clerics all of whom can cast sepells via the use of specific items, such a staff for the sorcerer, a pyro glove for the pyromancer and a chime for the clerics. The spells for sorcery generally require intelligence to use and the miracles require faith, which you will need to upgrade as you go on in the game. Again these items can be upgraded by the blacksmith Andri with the use of titanite or if not some other materials, so they can increase their power and damage output.

COMBAT

The combat system is pretty much the same as before but with some slight changes with the main one relating to the FP system, where a player can perform a skill move with their weapon, which could be a weapon buff or a specific enhanced type of attack. The player can as before also lock onto their enemies to keep track of them in combat although this isn't always 100 percent reliable as you can tend to lose sight of them at times, which automatically cancels out the lock-on! Another big addition this time around is the inclusion of liberal amounts of blood gushing from your enemies as you hit and kill them, however if you don't like that you can turn the blood settings off.

ENEMIES

The enemies in the game are very much varied and can range from being a minor nuisance to being downright brutally difficult! As usual there are a mix of enemies from the previous games such as the standard hollows, sekeltons, basilisks (who can curse you, which ends up killing you!) aswell as the return of the black and silver knights. However there are of course plenty of new enemies aswell some of which can be very challenging while others more straight forward but you always tend to fight the enemies will get tougher as the game progresses and DS III is no different here.

So, this time around we get new enemies such as the really annoying Ghru, who come in different varieties and can cast a poisonous mist at you aswell as smother you to near death. There are also other enemies such as the loudmouthed fat female Evangelists, who cast spells at you and can cause heavy damage with their large spiked clubs. And later there far more challenging enemies such as Pontiff Knights, who can hit hard and fast with curved swords. Then there are stranger enemies that include the Jailers, who can attack you with soldering irons and use lanterns that when lit red can reduce your health bar down to near zero! So, these new enemies can be quite annoying and challenging all at once for sure!

RINGS

Another key aspect of the game similar to the previous ones is the use of rings, which all give the player different abilities throughout and like Dark Souls II, you can now equipment four rings at once. Some rings will give you the ability to boost your attacks, especially for pyromancy and sorcery whereas others will allow you boost your overall health or discover more items or increase you resistance to hazardous things such as poison, toxicity, frostbite (new to this game) and curse.

It also recycles one or two rings from the original game such as the Dusk ring (increases spell use) and of course the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring (I think!) that cancels out any noise you make when you move, which is very useful sneaking up on enemies.    

NPCs & SUMMONS

As before, in Dark Souls III, there are plenty of non-playable characters (NPCs) for you to interact with as the game progreses and some of which become merchants who will sell and trade items with you. However some of the NPC merchants require you to save them from capture in order for them to make it back to Firelink Shrine to trade with you. As for the summons, similar to the previous games, you can summon certain NPCs to help you in the boss fights but in order to do this your character must use an ember so that the summon sign will appear. 

HOLLOWING

The hollowing process (which always happened when you died in Souls 1 and 2 and it left you looking more zombie-esque) is different this time around to the previous games in the series because in this game when you die, they will not go hollow, so their appearance will not change and become more ameciated like it did before. However you can still become hollow in this game by gaining an item called a dark sigil, which is supposed to increase your "inner strength". Hollowing can also be reversed with the use of an item called a purging stone (which was used to remove curse in the first Dark Souls).  I've not tried the hollowing option myself so far in my playthroughs though so can't comment on the hollowing process.


BOSSES

Again just like the previous Souls games, DS III has its share of bosses to fight although they had reduced the number that appear after the excessive amount that appeared in Dark Souls II. So, this time round there are only 19 bosses in the official game but there are an additional six more in the two DLCs for the game.  As usual as in the previous games, the player will take on these bosses by stepping through a fog gate into an area where they will fight and they cannot leave until the fight is over.

And once again, the bosses provide some of the main challenges of the game as they can vary in difficulty as some or fairly easy whereas others are incredibly difficult but that's just par for the course with Dark Souls. The bosses feature the usual mix of the human, demons, monsters, dragons and other beings that will really test your reseolve.

I won't really go into any detail on the bosses as such here but there are definitely some very testing ones to be found here and two in particular I have to say are the among the toughest bosses in the entire Souls series! I won't say too much about who they are but they have both given me unbelievable amounts of trouble in playing this game! In fact I will do a top 10 or 5 list of the hardest bosses from the game fairly soon, so I can bitch about them more! ;-)

GRAPHICS 

As for the graphics...well this is where Dark Souls III is a bit of a mixed bag as in a way the game sees the series take a bit of a step back in the quality of graphics of the previous two games (the remastered editions I mean of Souls I and II, which look great). And the disappoitment I have in the graphics mainly relate to the character models, which look like they belong to a previous generation console! So, there are certainly quite a few characters in the game that do look a bit basic and under developed aswell as some enemies.

However, having said all that Dark Souls III is still a pretty fine looking game in the graphics department when it comes to its environments as they actually do look quite stunning and with great detail and texture to structures, buildings and the general environment. In fact I'm sure the PC version of this game will look even better as you will be able to switch on anti-aliasing (which smooths out jagged edges in games). Your character also unlike the previous can also get all messy as they go through areas such as poison swamps or indeed just water, they're clothes will get all mudded and wet, so its a nice touch that they added this in.

So generally speaking the graphics are pretty good but just a little lacking in the character model department.

MUSIC

As for the music score it is primarily scored by Yuka Kitamura with some contributions by Motoi Sakuraba who composed in the first two Souls game and overall this is an outstanding score with plenty of highlights contributed by both composers. And the score has a real epic and emotional feel to it on a greater scale than the previous games with the tracks all primarily for the boss fights.

The standout tracks for me are Pontiff Sulyvhan, The Abyss Watchers, Twin Princes, Dancer of the Boreal Valley, Sister Friede to name a few but the very best two tracks for me are The Nameless King and Slave Knight Gael themes, which are both outstanding in different ways but both are undeniably brilliant pieces.

If there was one criticism I could level at the score maybe is that it does have a somewhat repetitive feel to it with its extensive usage of choral singers and operatic singing and the score itself can be a bit of a downer at times. However, none of this really detracts from what is largely a terrific soundtrack with superb contributions by both Kitamura and Sakuraba. 


FLAWS

As for flaws...yes Dark Souls III isn't perfect.

For starters there are some frustrating omissions from the game such as the ability to upgrade your armour, which is pretty daft if you ask me as you could upgarde it in the previous so why take that option in this one??? It makes little sense to me as upgrading armour was one of the key components in helping fight the bosses in previous games but here they decided to forget all that, which is annoying.

Another thing that bugged me was to do with the whole idea of Andri, the blacksmith being the go-to guy to upgrade your estus flasks and NOT the bonfire keeper! I mean what is all that about??? However you can upgrade your Estus flask's strength at the Firelink bonfire yourself, so it makes little sense as to why you would need Andri to do the rest. In fact it would have been much easier to have you upgrade your stats, allot your estus flasks between health and FP ones at the bonfire yourself without even relying on Andri to all that in the first place! It just makes things less convenient for the player and involves alot of tedious toing and froing between areas.

I also missed the idea of life gems being in the game, which appeared in Dark Souls II, which were a great back-up for your health when you had run out of estus flasks. However I guess the game makers decided the life gems were a bit of a cheat and make the game a bit too easy (even though Dark Souls II was still tough with them!) so you had to go back to using estus flasks alone to make things more challenging.

Another annoyance is to do with how the game makes farming for titanite shard pretty difficult early on as they are pretty sparse in the game until a bit later on and you of course need 2 to upgrade weapons to +1, 4 for +2 and 6 for +3. After this again you are forced to wait until you can upgrade your weapon using large titanite shard (which upgrades your weapons to +6) until later on in the game, which can make facing certain bosses quite difficult. And of course don't get me started on the wait you have before you can upgrade your weapons up to +9 as you need titante chunk for that and that is also pretty sparse in the game too even later on! So, the whole titanite upgrade process does get quite frustrating but again no doubt it was deliberate on the part of the makers to make life tricky.

And this brings me onto another area of frustration about the game, which is to do with the limited amount of alternative items to estus flasks that can replenish your health and while there are some they are always available in a limited capacity. So, as an example in the game you have an alternate health restoring item called divine blessing, which will restore your health completely and cure any poision/toxic effects but they are available only in limited amounts. So, if you are going into a big boss fight and find you are burning through your estus flasks too quickly you are left with little or no viable alternatives except these occassional ones, which to be honest really sucks in this game.

And then of course we get to the NPC summons for the boss fights, which it has to be said that the summons in this game SUCK BIG TIME! When you go into a boss fight you tend to find that the summons get killed all too quickly leaving alone to fight some tough bosses with more health and arguably stronger attacks. In Dark Souls II we got treated to some pretty awesome summons that were a big help in the boss battles and you had good old solid Solaire in the first game but here they just get wiped out pretty easily! So, this makes for a pretty frustrating time of things regarding summoning, which should have been way better here.

I also wish there would have been more options to top up your focus points for casting spells as there will be times in boss fights or indeed enemy areas where you will run out of FP until you get back to a bonfire. However there is one item that can do this in the game called hidden blessing but they are available in limited quantity, which kind of sucks it has to be said.

Then there is of course the issue with the game's blood options, which I am OK with to an extent as you see the animation of blood flying from your enemies when you attack them and vice versa (a la Bloodborne style). However my main grip here is with the blood option turned on, your character ends up with a bloodied face but instead of the blood being red its black! So, instead the character looks like they are covered in tear or soot and it looks silly! In the end I turned off the blood as I thought my character looked naff with black blood (or soot if you like!) all over them.  

Another problem I have with the game is to do with volume of the enemies as there are some enemies in the game that are WAY TOO NOISY!!! Yep, there are quite a few enemies that screech like hyenas such as the female hollows who carry lanterns, the tree enemies in the Painted World DLC area and of course the Ghru, who screech loudly when you kill them (OK they are pretty funny the way they screech I admit!). So, I do wish that they turned down the volume just a little bit on these enemies as the previous games were never like this and it remains an annoyance.  

And last of all is to do with cursing (not swearing!) in the game, which appears to do nothing in this game other than kill you and that's it with no other after effects! Now in the previous games when you were cursed it actually did something to you when you were resurrected at the bonfire as in the original game, cursing halved your life and in the second game it increase your level of hollowing by one each time. However here apart from death, the curse has no other effect so to me I think it was just a pointless inclusion in the 3rd game, which I think was just added for the sake of consistency with the other games.

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So to sum up, Dark Souls III is an excellent conclusion to the Souls series and it is packed with plenty of gripping and exciting combat and stern boss fights that will keep you thrilled and frustrated in equal measure. The game does still have its faults but its testament to the quality of the series that this game is still as good as it is. So, suffice to say Dark Souls III is a game that is still as addictive and long lasting as the previous ones with near endless replay value and is well worth checking out.


So, that's it for now and I will be back soon with another post hopefully quite soon.

Till then bye for now!