Right, so its time for part 2 of my ranking the Soulsborne and Sekiro games in my order of preference and here I will look at the games in the top 3 of FromSoftware's catalogue. Again I have left Demon's Souls off this list because I haven't played it yet and given its lack of availability on other platforms other than the PS3 makes it difficult for me to get unless I get a PC emulator version, which I might look into in future in order to play it.
Also just to say that this list is based on my own preferences so feel free to disagree as I'm sure we all have different opinions on what is the best Soulsbornekiro (someone else coined this phrase not me by the way and its pretty good imho lol!).
So, with that all said, let's take a look at the remaining top 3 games...
3. Dark Souls III
So, at No.3. is funnily enough a game with the number 3 in it, Dark Souls III, which saw the return of Hidetaka Miyazaki as director after he took a leave of absence in Dark Souls II as he was busy working on Bloodborne at the time and felt he didn't want to direct two games simultaneously.
And with Miyazaki's return we got a real treat with Dark Souls III as its a game that is high on quality not only in its general content but also in its challenging boss fights as well as having a terrific soundtrack. Also given that this was to be the final Dark Souls game it was a fitting send-off to a great trilogy of games and as such one of the best in the series.
Story-wise Dark Souls III differs somewhat from its predecessors where your playable character is a champion of Ash, known as the Ashen One and someone who was almost made a Lord of Cinder but ultimately was not given that mantle and shares a similar undead curse to the previous game characters. So, the basic idea here is that the Ashen One will collect the souls of the Lords of Cinder in order to link the flame but in doing so they must fight their way past many dangerous enemies before they can reach their path to Lothric castle where ultimately the Ashed One will fight Princes Lorian and Lothric to complete the required souls needed to do so.
Dark Souls III succeeds really well in borrowing elements from the previous games and tweaking some of the issues from those games, especially by cutting down on the amount bosses and focusing more on creating memorable boss fights rather than just a bunch of boring filler ones like in Dark Souls III. And the game also feels a lot tighter than its predecessor as a result of this which also helps become a more enjoyable game.
And Dark Souls III has no shortage of memorable and challenging boss fights such as The Twin Princes, Lorian and Lothric, which is an incredibly difficult battle as the two brothers teleport around their throne room twatting you with miracles and a giant flaming sword! Then there are other great fights such as the Nameless King, who's difficulty is notorious in the series and with good reason as he is mighty brutal to take on in combat! And of course there is also Slave Knight Gael, who stands as easily one of the best bosses in the series, who pretty much concludes the entire series itself as he is the last DLC boss of the game itself.
Dark Souls III also includes some new neat elements such as the weapon art focus point system, which did appear in Demon's Souls but only this time the combat and move sets of the weapons now feel way more refined and sophisticated than before. There are also plenty of new weapons to check out of which quite a few of them are pretty cool such as the Sellwsword Twinblades, Millwood Battle Axe and the Follower Sabre. You can also even create weapons from boss souls just as you could before and from that you also get some pretty nifty weapons such as Lorian's Greatsword, which is a firey one and Vordt's Hammer, which is essentially a giant hammer that inflicts frostbite damage.
You also have the opportunity to use consumable items such as coloured pellets that help reduce elemental damage such as fire, lightning and dark and these come in extremely handy throughout and it helps that they last two minutes, which is great when you are in the middle of a boss fight.
Dark Souls III also does something a bit different with hollowing than in previous games because rather than you reverting back to your hollow form when you die, this time you don't and you need to undergo a process to become a hollow, which involves seeking out an aged sorcerer that gives dark sigils that make you hollow. And the more you die, the more this will increase your hollowing level, which can also increase your attack power if you do certain builds such as luck or bleed.
There are of course still some issues with Dark Souls III in that maybe it is the least most innovative entry in the series as it builds on what is already there without adding a great deal of new content. I also felt that it lacked certain things such as more alternative healing items other than your standard estus flasks and just a handful of divine blessings, which you can only use one at a time! You can get some items that restore your health but they work far too slowly to be that effective and overall I'd say the lack of extra healing items is a pest here.
I also felt it was daft to have the blacksmith Andre (who also appeared in the original Souls game) upgrade your estus flask usage rather than the bonfire keeper yet you could upgrade the amount of health the estus flask restores yourself at the Firelink Shrine bonfire! It just felt to me like this whole estus upgrade process was rushed and wasn't really thought through properly.
But those issues aside, Dark Souls III is an incredibly solid entry in the Souls series and one of my favourites that saw the series get a great send-off and it deserves it place here at No.3.
2. Bloodborne
So, at No.2 is Bloodborne, which for me ranks as one of the two masterpieces that Hidetaka Miyazaki has directed in the Soulsborne series and is a tremendous game overall that despite some similarities to the Souls games, it still stands out on its own.
As for its story, Bloodborne differs quite a bit from the Souls games in that it follows more the ideology of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, who was an American gothic horror writer. And the game itself is set in a Victorian-esque time where you play as a hunter who enters a dream-like world, fighting against a scourge of beasts in the town of Yarnham where you must try and find a way to stop the beast plague and end the nightmare that plagues the town.
Bloodborne is a terrific game without a doubt and even though as I said it shares some similarities to the Souls games in terms of healing, the travel system, being essentially an undying character as well as very similar weapon upgrade items, it still remains a pretty unique game in its own right. The game also has a great, brooding atmosphere to it as you wander the creepy town that is Yarnham fighting a large number of beasts and getting covered in torrents of blood as you do it making this easily one of FromSoftware's bloodiest games!
This game is also great because of its innovative ideas and this is especially the case with its weapons, as they are known as trick weapons that have initial form but can be transformed into another one to perform different attacks.
As an example there is the Hunter Axe, a strength weapon which starts off as a basic battle axe but on its transform mode it extends into essentially a halberd that allows for greater ranged attacks. Other trick weapons also include the strength based Whirligig saw, which in its un-transformed phase is a large stick which you can use to perform blunt attacks but when transformed you can attach a circular buzz saw head to the stick to perform serrated damage attacks. Then there are skill weapons such as the Blade of Mercy, which is refined sharp blade that can break off into two smaller blades as can perform some very fast combo attacks. And there is another skill weapon such as Rakuyo, which performs similarly to the Blade of Mercy except it starts as a longer slender sword that breaks off into two blades and can also be used to perform combo attacks.
The game also makes use of items known as runes that act similarly to the rings in Dark Souls that can boost your resistances to certain types of damage such as poison, fire, bolt and frenzy (which is similar to curse in the Souls games and can kill you outright or take a large amount of your health). Other ruins can also boost your attack power, help to discover more items from fallen enemies and even help you to restore your health when attacking enemies that have damaged your health.
WARNING: THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH FEATURES A SPOILER CONNECTED TO THE END OF THE GAME!
Another great element of Bloodborne is of course the boss fights, which for the most part are also pretty memorable, very well designed and can also be pretty tough too. And the memorable boss fights include Father Gascoigne, a blood-thirsty hunter who driven mad by his desire for blood, Lady Maria, a hunter you encounter in the Hunter's Nightmare in the game's DLC. Ludwig, who was formerly a hunter and is now a hideously mutated horse like beast. Gerhamn, the First Hunter, who (SPOILER!!!) can become a boss if you refuse to leave the Hunter's Dream at the end of the game. And last but not least is the Orphan of Kos, who is rather gross looking humanoid creature with a large placenta (yuk!) which he can attack you with and must rank as the hardest boss in the entire game!
The game also has arguably the best soundtrack of any of the games in the Soulsborne-Sekiro series so far as it is absolutely superb with one exception which is the theme for boss, Micolash, which is rubbish and is the only blight in another-wise magnificent score. And some of my favourites from the score include the themes for Gerhman, Lady Maria, Ludwig, Blood Staved Beast and Laurence, The First Vicar all of which are terrific, memorable themes.
Flaws wise, Bloodborne does have some issues here and there and the biggest issue alot of people raise it is to do with the game's Chalice Dungeons, which are a group of underground dungeons that the hunter can explore in which they will fight a hoard of enemies and more bosses. The dungeons are also where the hunter can pick up the very best blood gems in the game, which you use to boost the damage output of your weapons. The only problem is that the dungeons can tend to get pretty tedious after a while although I have to admit, I actually don't mind searching through them and they can be fun for a time.
Another issue I had was to do with farming for blood chunks that will upgrade your weapons to +9 as the process to do this pretty tedious and takes a long time! However if you can boost your discovery level high enough with the aid of the correct runes then you will be able to get a slightly better drop rate from certain enemies but without them its a major slog to do!
Lastly I felt, as I'm sure plenty of other fans of the game do that the PVP (i.e. online option of the game) is pretty poor and especially the summon system as you can literally spend FOREVER trying to get a summon for a boss fight! I also felt that PVP invasions in the game were a bit hit and miss and idea to find and kill a chime maiden makes things a bit annoying if you want to prevent being invaded when you are online.
However all that aside, Bloodborne is still one of the very best games in the Soulsborne series and its filled with great, fast paced combat, innovative weapons, a terrific soundtrack and stylish well designed not to mention, challenging boss fights. And I think it easily deserves to be ranked in the top 2 games of the series as its that good.
And with only one game left to look at, I think we can all guess what is at No.1....
1. Dark Souls
Yep, at No.1 is of course the original Dark Souls, which for me is the best overall game in the Soulsborne-Sekiro series and even though Demon's Souls started the whole shebang off, Dark Souls was the first game I played and as such is still my favourite.
So, what makes Dark Souls so good? Well, for me again it brings a lot of innovative ideas to the table and it is also a game that is filled with varied combat, memorable and engaging NPCs, challenging boss fights and for its, very impressive visuals that got an excellent overhaul in the Remastered edition that came out last year.
Dark Souls also introduces the core concepts of its trilogy with the story of a chosen undead that is destined to succeed Gwyn, the Lord of Cinder, in order to break the curse and link the flame to keep the age of fire going. However in order to do so, the chosen undead must fight their way through a hoard of enemies, bosses and also claim the souls of four Great Ones in order to access the final area of the game and take on Gwyn in combat.
Dark Souls has so much to offer in terms of its variety of combat, traversing different areas and environments not to mention giving players the chance to create many different builds such as a warrior, sorcerer, pyromancer, swordsman (or woman) or even a cleric. And again you have access to a wide variety of melee weapons such as swords, axes, halberds, spears, clubs and hammers as well as magic spells, miracles (for Clerics), pyromancies and dark magic. So there are plenty of weapons to choose from here and many of them would reappear in the sequels and are among my favourites in the series. With all this at the players fingertips, the possibilities of creating builds in Dark Souls is practically limitless.
The game also has plenty of interesting and memorable NPCs such as Solaire, a knight who is in search of his own personal enlightment and can be summoned to help you in several boss fights. Then there is of course Patches, a sneaky and untrustworthy merchant, Big Hat Logan, an eccentric but legendary sorcerer and of course Siegward of Catarina (aka onion bro!) who wears onion-like shaped armour and even sleeps standing up!
Then we have the game's bosses some of which rank among the very best in the series not to mention the most memorable. And the game's best bosses include of course the legendary Ornstein and Smough, Knight Artorius, Four Kings, Manus: Father of the Abyss, Gwyn: Lord of Cinder and Pinwheel (just kidding about Pinwheel!). And if you are unfamiliar with the Souls games and are new to them then these bosses are sure to tie you up in knots and in fits of frustration for days on end!
The game's visual design for its time is also very impressive and the variety in its environments is also just as good with again some terrific well designed bosses and interesting, not to mention tough standard enemies. However I would say though that the character models for your playable character aren't the best as their faces look just a bit too soft and undefined in comparison to the other games in the series.
Dark Souls also differs from the other games in that you can upgrade your own stats at the bonfire yourself without another figure such as you would need to do in the other games. The game also even let's you upgrade your own weapons and armour at the bonfire, which is something none of the other Souls games let you do without a blacksmith. So, in a way Dark Souls is the most forward thinking of the three games in the trilogy and in that respect the sequels kind of took a backward step.
Where Dark Souls does fall down a little is that the weapon upgrade path is a bit more complicated that in the sequels as you need to different embers if you want to upgrade your weapons all the way to +15 (the sequels would be +10). Also if you want to make elemental weapons such as fire, lightning or magic ones, you need special shards to do so and it requires you to downgrade your existing weapon to +5 before you can convert it. Not only that but the game insists on using different coloured chunks for the upgrades for different types of weapons, which is a bit tedious and it feels a bit unnecessary and again in the sequels you just used standard chunks rather than a bunch of different ones.
And lastly there is of course the whole issue with the animation of drinking your Estus flask during fights because when you do drink it, you are rooted to the spot and cannot move and this often can be difference between life and death as more often than not if you drink at the wrong time it will result you in getting killed! Thankfully by the time we got to Dark Souls III, this issue had been ironed out and you can drink your Estus on the move but I always felt this was really frustrating in the original game and to an extent even in Dark Souls II.
However those quibbles aside, the original Dark Souls is still for me the best game in the series and it forever will warrant repeated playing with its exciting combat, great boss fights and virtually endless variety in making different builds and using a vast array of weapons and spells. Its the best of the best and it deserves to be at No.1 on this list.
Right, so that's it for now and I will be back soon with another review as I recently seen the latest Star Wars at the cinema, The Rise of Skywalker, so you can expect a review forthcoming for that.
Till then its bye for now, may the good blood guide your way and praise the sun!
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