Dark Souls III Review

Dark Souls is a series which, I believe, more people have heard of than have actually attempted to play. It’s a series infamous for its relentless difficulty and refusal to hold the player’s hand. Where other, more orthodox modern games would have a linear progression with a straightforward story and simple fights, Dark Souls has always provided a sprawling, open world with unique enemies, combat, and a story that was left more or less to the player’s interpretation. Does the newest (and final) installment in the series, Dark Souls 3, carry the torch as its predecessors did, or does it fail to capture the spirit of the games that enthralled players across the world?

Simply put: yes, yes it does. Dark Souls 3 had me hooked from start to finish. Its combat was much faster than the first two of the series, but I think that was for the better. It allowed enemies that were overwhelming in speed and aggression to bar your way, and it created yet another challenge to overcome. Other than the speed and a few mechanical changes, Dark Souls 3 acts, looks, and feels just as it should: like a Dark Souls game.

There are a few things that make Souls games worth playing, and Dark Souls 3 hits the nail on the head for all of them. The first thing that really makes a Souls game compelling is its ability to reward the player just for progressing. It doesn’t do this through an awesome item, or experience points, or a sweet armor set; it does this just through the feeling of overcoming the boss who just obliterated you thirty times in a row. There’s a feeling that courses its way through your body after you bring down a tough boss in Dark Souls; it’s some mixture of brutal victory, adrenaline, relief, and disbelief. After you’ve killed a boss or two, this becomes your drug. You yearn to find another boss that will stomp you beneath its feet over and over so you can experience the flash of “Victory Achieved” on your screen again. And you won’t struggle to find them; Dark Souls 3’s bosses are some of the best in the series.

The second thing that makes any Souls game incredible is the boss design. This is one of the reasons Dark Souls 2 is considered by most to be the weakest of the three; its bosses are forgettable for the most part. On the contrary, Dark Souls 3’s boss design is top-tier. It’s great. It’s wonderful. I can’t decide which fight was my favorite, but I can say this: Dark Souls 3’s consistency with its boss quality is better than any other in the series. Every boss in Dark Souls 3 has an excellent balance of uniqueness, difficulty, and awe. A boss fight in this game is more of a dance than a fight; you skirt around the boss, dodging its massive swings and explosive stomps, trying to learn its moves so you can find an opening. Little by little, you chip away at its health, and, after repeatedly dying, you overcome the challenge, and that feeling of victory comes back.

The game doesn’t end at the incredible single player experience, though. The multiplayer experience in this game isn’t anything like what we’ve come to expect from multiplayer in games these days. Players have two options when it comes to multiplayer: invasion, or co-operation. In order to co-op with somebody, you have to use an item and leave a little sign on the ground. When someone walks by, they can click on it to summon you to their world to help them with a tough area or boss. Alternatively, you can use a different item which lets you invade someone else’s world. When you invade someone, they have no say in the matter. You show up in their world, and, if you kill the poor soul you invaded, you take their stuff. However, invasions prioritize players with phantoms (the form a player takes when they get summoned for co-op), so you usually invade into a 2v1 or even 3v1 scenario. This means that, in order to be successful, you have to use the environment and the enemies in the zone to your advantage. Overall, the multiplayer is an enjoyable experience, albeit a little unbalanced at the moment. It adds to an already compelling game, and I enjoy it. Although it takes away from the glory of killing a tough boss solo, there’s a certain bond you form with a friend when you watch him tank a boss’s lethal move and sacrifice himself in order for you to finish the fight.

Overall, Dark Souls 3 is an incredible game. Although it is difficult to break into, once you do, it’s well worth it. The game can easily take upwards of sixty hours to finish, and that’s if you know what you’re doing. Despite this, it doesn’t feel like a grind or wasted time. The deep exploration, fluid combat, cryptic story, and unique experience all come together to make Dark Souls 3 one of the greatest releases of recent time. I highly recommend it.