Dark Souls 3 is the third entry in From Software’s brutal action RPG series. After its iconic debut, many felt the second entry dipped a little, but the final game is a stonking return to form. Let’s take a closer look in this Dark Souls 3 review.
Essentially a hack and slash ’em up with RPG underpinnings, Dark Souls 3 sees you fighting your way from place to place through a strange and forbidding world.
You pick a character from a number of preset classes and then slowly grow your stats as you level up. The game is more flexible than its predecessors. Being a jack of all trades is more achievable, even if not ideal.
Different play styles are possible, with magic users having a very different experience to out and out brawlers. The game rewards multiple play-throughs and is full of secrets.
Famously, Dark Souls is a difficult series, but one that pulls players up with it and demands they play at its level. Baddies that would be grunts in most other games demand concentration and precision.
There is little margin for error. This is a game where you need to ruthlessly exploit the mechanics to eke every advantage you can over the obstacles in your way.
Indeed, to progress through the normal game you’ll need to know the lie of the land more thoroughly than in perhaps any other game.
Even the earliest enemies will take advantage of any flaw in your defenses and leave you reeling. You soon learn not to stop blocking for any reason, until you figure out that that cripples your stamina recovery, so start doing it more sparingly.
The challenge is brutal, but the sense of achievement when downing a boss is a fist-pump moment not many games can do. Getting stuck can be demoralizing, but you can always pull in a friend, via the co-op system if you really can’t make progress. Trying to do the game without assistance though, takes the game to another level of challenge.
The sound complements the game perfectly. The gentle whistle as you absorb the souls of a fallen enemy is an understated, if creepy celebration of each victory. Play with headphones and the bloodied gurgles of the fallen make the game all the more unsettling.
The dialogue, giving you snippets of vague advice and drips of plot, is also outstanding. Delivered in a strange, rhythmic monotone, the words of bosses and shopkeepers will linger long in your memory, partly because its so hard to be sure what they mean.
Many of the characters have a backhanded jibe at you or a contemptuous cackle that hints at the precariousness of your position in the game’s world.
The original Dark Souls was a curious beast graphically. Appearing in a period when Japanese games were behind the curve technically, it had the look of a game that wasn’t really pushing the boat out, while actually being quite advanced in the way it delivered its seamless world.
Artistically of course, it had quality in spades. The third entry is a much more impressive game on the surface, though its world isn’t as interconnected. It can be magnificent at times however, not least in its architecture. Like the characters and enemies, buildings seem to be there for a reason and have their own history. Many will be familiar from the other games, but have often changed over the years. You’ll also notice that statues resemble familiar characters, if you pay attention.
Enemy design is detailed and meticulous. The various beasts all fit in with their environments and the attention to detail is great. You get the feeling From have thought long and hard about everything – what the creatures are doing there, where they come from. It all ads up to a curious sense of believability about them and the strange world they inhabit.
The bosses are where the bulk of the challenge lies and are where you’ll mostly get stuck. The first Dark Souls had more of a balance between the open sections and the boss fights, but here the bosses are the most serious challenges you’ll face, by far.
The game is full of hidden things to find, some more obscure than others. There are hidden walls and items in hard to reach places. Problems that seem insurmountable can often be solved with a switch of loadout or a dexterous maneuver.
The online messaging system comes in to play here. You can leave messages that appear in other player’s worlds. You build messages from a limited vocabulary, so can’t give things away entirely but there is plenty of scope for assistance and creativity. Messages are hugely helpful, but may not always be honest.
The plot is obscure and the details the subject of much debate among the game’s community. You aren’t given much to go on, but the basic thrust is that you need to bring five lords to their thrones in order to link the flame.
One lord has volunteered, leaving you effectively, with four major bosses to hunt down in order to complete your quest. As with much of the game, it isn’t clear exactly why you are trying to link the fire, or if it is a good thing.
Dark Souls 3 launched in 2016, but is still going strong and has plenty of people playing online. To discuss the multiplayer is almost a spoiler, because the mystery of the mechanics is such a key part of the game. Suffice to say other players appear in your game in various ways. If you don’t consult a guide you could easily go through the whole game without understanding exactly what is going on and we’re not going to spoil things here.
What Dark Souls does is impressive though and pretty much unique. The optional co-op parts provide a real sense of team spirit and a welcome respite from the bleakness of the rest of the game. If you haven’t played a game in the series, you might be wondering which to go for. Well, the first is the classic, though is harder to figure out than 3, which feels more conventionally structured.
Having said that, the interlinked map of the first game and the way everything hangs together is a unique piece of game design that this game doesn’t recreate, despite the exquisite design of individual areas. Our advice would be to start with the third, but the first is a good choice, too.
There are two pieces of downloadable content. There is no shortage of things to do in the main game, but if you want even more to do these are well worth it and include some of the game’s toughest bosses.
The game is available for PC, Playstation 4 and XBox One. The PS4 version is currently on Amazon for $19.99. That’s well worth it if you haven’t played it, and we recommend anyone that likes a challenge to pick it up.
