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The "Souls" series as it was deemed, holds 4 games. Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, and the newest entry which I will be covering today, Dark Souls 3. Dark Souls 3 follows the same schematic as the other games - die over and over throughout an area, only to get wrecked by some ridiculous boss creature once you finally reach the end.
Now that I have given those who are not familiar with the Souls series an insight of what it is about, now I'm going to give my analysis of the game in 3 categories: Difficulty, Gameplay, and Multiplayer. I will be rating them from 1-10, 1 being poor, 10 being outstanding.
As fans of the Souls series, difficulty is almost considered part of the fun factor of the game. Everyone who has played the game has that boss that they remember having to fight over and over for hours on end to no success.. until, you finally do beat him. That feeling of success can not be beaten by the best of feelings. Now, that being said, Dark Souls 3, while being a step up from it's predecessor, Dark Souls 2, it still did not present as much of a challenge early game, although, bosses did increase in difficulty quite greatly once reaching an area later in the game known as "Irithyll of the Boreal Valley." The boss of this area posed the first anger inducing challenge for me, which ironically is about halfway through the game. Referring to the regular enemies I never really encountered many that were tough to beat. The hardest of the common enemies were the dancers that reside in Irithyll. Given the challenge does not start until about halfway through the game, the end game truly does make up for that, I promise. Rating? 7.7/10
As for the gameplay, Dark Souls 2 has been my favorite due to how much I truly enjoyed the DLC to that game. Not only for the new areas, enemies, and bosses, but for the new armor and weapons as well. I actually found myself using a DLC weapon as soon as I got it. Now, the gameplay in Dark Souls 3 is also quite favorable to me. Early in the game you are given opportunities at acquiring somewhat powerful weapons/spells/hexs/miracles/pyromancies no matter what sort of build you are. As for my strength build, I acquired an A strength scaling weapon within the first few areas. I have tinkered around with nearly all of the builds (have not tried my luck as a pyromancer yet) and of them, it seems my solely strength build has had the most diligent success. So when it comes to the gameplay, I would isolate it from the other games. I don't believe a specific build gives you a great advantage over any of the others when playing through the game. Whereas in previous games, there was usually a one build that surpassed others for certain reasons. So in this game, don't be afraid to try whichever build interests you most. 9.5/10
Multiplayer plays a somewhat critical role in the entire Souls series. Throughout the series, you are able to summon friendly phantoms (aka other players) into your game to help you defeat a boss that you have struggled with. Now of course that just sounds way too convenient, right? Well it is. Other players can also come in as red phantoms and invade and kill you. Now, Dark Souls 2 multiplayer was executed somewhat nicely. However, I wish I could say 3 improved them. In Dark Souls 3, if you are willing to try and take on 3 other people at once, then sure, you might this fun.
I have tried my handful of PvP in Dark Souls 3 and I found it hard to believe just how many "ganks" I came across. Now, when I did find somebody by themselves, sure, I enjoyed it; but the problem was that it hardly happened. Now, maybe this was just bad luck, but otherwise, it was not horrible. Connection was fine, hit boxes seemed accurate, all in all, it was good aside from the matchmaking. 7.2/10
The content of this game is incredible, from the areas to the intensive design of the creatures, and bosses. I find the game addicting and hard to put down. It is definitely fighting for the top spot of the series and has earned a decent overall rating. I heavily advise to pick the game up before the DLC comes out, and if you are new to the series, good luck, and I hope you have funds for another controller once you break yours.
Overall: 8.13/10
