FromSoftware can’t be blamed for trying to create additional acts to their masterful production. If Demons’ Souls was conception then Dark Souls was a second coming. It ignited a legion of Souls diehards viciously prepared to follow FromSoftware through the abyss. They would emerge battered and bruised, but ultimately proud to have made it to the other side.
In a perfect world we would have our perfect game and go looking for another pristine experience. In our world, critical and financial prosperity create demand for more regardless of the authenticity of inspiration. Dark Souls II tweaked and twisted Dark Souls’ rules into a divergent but still largely parallel journey. Bloodborne spoke Souls parlance quickly and in a more aggressive dialect, but remained versed in much of the same language. These are still very good games—I’d consider both Dark Souls II and Bloodborne to be among the ten best games in their respective years—but they’re still the same game. Dark Souls was the movement that created the following.
Dark Souls III is expected to continue repeating this lineage. It does. It is assumed to rein in some of Dark Souls II’s more wild tangents. It does. It is supposed to introduce a few new tricks and smooth off (or double down) some rough edges. Of course, it does. Dark Souls III needs to revel in the series’ cherished opacity, deliver a steady progression of extravagant boss battles, and challenge the player with a world intimately constructed and designed to demand one hundred percent of their attention. Yes, Dark Souls III does all of that too.
Dark Souls III does all of this because it is a Dark Souls game, a point so obvious I wouldn’t bother making it if these qualifications didn’t simultaneously render it unique in its medium and appreciable by both the naive and the dedicated. In my brain space Dark Souls and its descendants are perfect and remain bulletproof against major criticisms. There are, however, numerous pieces to analyze, relate, protest, and (probably) pontificate in an attempt to explain the nature of its behavior. Even when it breaks down, I’d still rather be playing a Souls game than almost anything else out there.
At its best, Dark Souls III functions as a summation of the last seven years of Souls games. It’s not as boldly adept to strike out into new territory, but it’s also not arrogant enough to discard unpopular ideas. Dark Souls III’s world of Lothric isn’t as intricately woven as Lordran, but not as spindled and fractured as Drangleic. It’s more linear and more accessible with a vested interest in tucking away pockets of hidden branches and secret locations. This may be viewed as disappointing—the sophisticated construction of Lordran is a marvelous lesson in open world design—but it’s also unnecessary under Dark Souls’ fullembrace of fast travel. Lothric makes its points without the full sense of adventure.
Dark Souls III is also more of a proper sequel to the original Dark Souls. In some cases this works out to the game’s benefit. It’s nice to see some familiar faces floating around Lothric, and certain areas are either a direct nod to past games or an intended and named rendition of beloved locations. The cyclical nature of time and place is a hallmark of Dark Souls’ lore, and Dark Souls III splits the difference between implied and direct reference. Whether it’s literally connected to Dark Souls or thematically linked to Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne, Dark Souls III doesn’t shy away from servicing its fans.
With all of that in mind, Dark Souls III’s visuals are distressingly allegiant to past games. There’s another abandoned library, a different dilapidated graveyard, incredible volumes of collapsed architecture, haunted forests, rocky crags, and, of course, a swamp drenched in poison liquid. The cyclical nature of Dark Souls’ world rationally explains some of this away, but I was constantly waiting to be affected with something breathtaking or at least new to see. I’ll never forget the first time I set eyes on Anor Londo, saw the sunsets at Yharnam and Majula, or felt enveloped in Ash Lake’s massive, haunting isolation. Other than an impressive entrance into Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, Dark Souls III is content to deliver its Murderers’ Row of ruined fantasy dioramas.
Playing Dark Souls III comes with its own set of expectations. Roll a class with a particular skill alignment, earn souls by defeating enemies, and use those souls as currency for gear or spend them leveling up your particular stats. Lose your life; lose all of your souls. You have the opportunity to reclaim lost souls by return to the spot where you died, provided you can make it through all of the opposition once more. This is the thesis of Dark Souls’ risk and reward system, and in fact most of this paragraph was lifted from my review of Dark Souls II. It hasn’t changed because it is not broken.
That being said, Dark Souls III has its own suite of modifications. The most obvious of these are weapon skills, a specific special move granted to either classes weapons or an individual weapon. Skills, along with magic, consume a third mana bar that measures focus points. My precious Uchigatana and Black Blade came with a new stance loaded with an exclusive lunging attack that doubled as a parry. Other weapons issue certain buffs to poise, defense, and other much needed status effects. Your means of refilling focus points are through your dedicated Ashen Estus Flask, and the number you carry can be divided between your health-restorative Estus Flask.
Focus Points, not to mention the skills and magic they command, are unique in their versatility. They’re also somewhat dispensable to players who prefer a more traditional Sword & Board approach to Dark Souls’ combat. If you’re just going to a put a ton of points into strength and wield the most massive armor, shield, and sword available, Dark Souls III is happy to oblige. Making use of skills isn’t necessarily a sign of a more sophisticated player, but rather an option to be explored (and possibly exploited) on successive runs. With my dex-focused build I wasn’t too keen on making use of skills in serious situations, but it was a fun diversion to play around with while I made my way through familiar parts of Lothric.
Dark Souls III has also seen its share of simplification. Shopkeepers are found throughout Lothric, but are all quickly assembled back at the Firelink Shrine hub. Similarly, you no longer have to scour the ends of the earth for specialized blacksmiths, but instead find special coals and return them for additional smithing options. These time savers loosen the weight that sometimes dragged Dark Souls down and provide a more efficient play-through. The one exception appears to be weapon durability, a vestigial appendage that only seeks to challenge speed runners or players deliberately not resting at bonfires.
The heart of Dark Souls III, like every Souls game before it, is finding and developing any means necessary to give yourself an advantage. This is most easily felt on your maiden voyage through a location. Every corner of Lothric begs for your attention, and every section seems primed to offer a reward in the form of weapon upgrade materials, brand new armor sets, optional bosses, obscure items for NPCs, or even entire covenants buried and waiting to be found. Repetition can be an essential part of the adventure, but in my experience there’s no greater pleasure than mentally mapping an area, taking command against all of its tricks, and pillaging everything I could find before I moved on. Dark Souls III always rewards further exploration, paying off, rather than wasting, the investment of time.
It can feel like FromSoftware went a little crazy with Dark Souls beloved quirks. Illusionary walls, absent from Bloodborne and infrequent in Dark Souls II, are everywhere in Dark Souls III, and I’d wager a majority of treasure chests are actually mimics. Bonfires for the sake of saving you ten steps for no reason are in frequent supply, although enemies surrounding them seem less predisposed to do you dirty. It almost feels like pieces of Dark Souls III were assembled in a vacuum with only a mandate to guide them; more fake walls, more fake chests, more cheeky references and the lack of coordination resulted in too much of a good thing.
Restraint is fortunately exercised inside boss fights. Dark Souls III reigns in their numbers by only outfitting worthy foes as sanctioned encounters. There are actually a considerable number of demons or crocodile things or other large beasts that would have qualified as a boss in Dark Souls II, but now they’re just part of the game (though they do not reappear once defeated). I’m reluctant to cite names—it’s considered a spoiler in the community and I’d prefer not to get internet lynched today—other than to say Dark Souls III’s bosses run the usual gamut of humanoid duels, large-beast encounters, a clever gang fight, assholes with extraordinary magic, and a wonderful feint of perceived disability with extraordinary power.
In addition to the usual boss sequences—fog walls, massive arena, depleting health bars—Dark Souls III also has a handful of gimmick fights. The word “gimmick” is contentious and I’m reluctant to use it, but there’s no better way to describe Dark Souls III’s actions with these guys. Without getting into specifics, bosses that would be too large to traditionally fight have certain weak points that, once broken, cause a great amount of damage. One exception arrives with a boss that’s particular weaken to a certain weapons skill (a weapon which the game makes certain you have) and while it can be defeated traditionally, doing so is an enormous test of willpower.
In any case, if exploring Lothric’s serpentine locations is an exercise in instant gratification, battling bosses is a deferment of pleasure. Dark Souls’ measured brand of combat is a little faster in Dark Souls III, but it’s still built to reward analysis and patience. Engaging a boss is a process; if getting lucky isn’t an option then the boss, and all of his moves, transition to a process of study and adaptation. Learning lessons and pushing back with skill may yield Dark Souls III’s highest returns, even if observing a 90% depleted health bar and keeping composure symmetrical escalates the heart rate to dangerous levels.
Dark Souls III’s story is what it is. I have no idea what happened. I understand that proper consumption is achieved by pouring over item descriptions and making impossible connections between explicit characters and implicit lore, and I felt the same pulse running through Dark Souls, but that’s not why I’m here. One trip to your favorite forum will offer theories about giving birth to invisible children and other desperate references alongside all three games, but none of that interests me. What I took from Dark Souls III’s narrative was what I absorbed from its gloomy world. I can see these places in my head because I have memorized most of them, and to me that spoke more of a personal story than the intended opacity.
NPC sidequests are, at best, a mess. The arcane paths necessary to satisfy some of these characters are acquired exclusively through a guide because there is no reasonable way to intuit any of it. This is kind of understandable, these things may be intended for successive runs, but it’s also so deep in the pond that a solo player has no other option than to drown. Dark Souls III makes some appreciated quality-of-life strides, but there’s still room to grow without damaging what makes the series special.
NPC shenanigans and lore minutia are easier to pass because Dark Souls III is intended to be a social experience. You share what you’ve learned with others and form a complete narrative. Seeing messages left by other players pretty much gave away every illusion wall and mimic chest, but it also pointed out easily overlooked enemies or items. Watching the ghosts of players past foolishly die (or commit suicide) is as unique and helpful of a feature as it’s ever been. Summoning other players in for a battle, even though it adjusts the boss’ health bar, still basically feels like cheating, but the option is there if you’re getting pulverized. Covenants felt mostly unchanged; either it’s a territory defense of certain areas or its balance of heroes and villains, though Dark Souls II had (mostly) solved that mechanic.
Dark Souls III’s defiant resolve to not only compete, but to thrive under the weight of its predecessors speaks to the quality of the original product. I didn’t think there ever needed to be a sequel, and certainly not a third entry, and yet here we are with another delicious box of treats I would swear I’d never had before. It’s so good, and I seem to be incapable of getting tired even though I’m devouring them annually. Dark Souls was awesome. Dark Souls III is great. Another one shouldn’t be made and yet I secretly hope this keeps happening every year.
