I’ve been playing the Souls series since Demon’s Souls. I’ve invested hundreds upon hundreds, if not thousands, of hours across all platforms that the games have been available on. Many souls have been lost, many curses thrown, many quits incited by rage.

Playing through Dark Souls 1 for my first time was one of the most intense experiences I have ever had. I spent countless hours attempting to beat Ornstein and Smough, those brillaint combatants… When I finally beat them, it was the best feeling a videogame had ever given me.

Playing through Dark Souls III has been such a phenomenal experience, and I know it shall continue to be so. It is bringing back that constant joy/anger of being destroyed and then going back and destroying the once destroyer. It is allowing me to relive the feeling of beating that boss whom I had been trying to beat for so long now. Though at the time of writing there is one boss whom I am yet to beat, he shall remain nameless for now. I am yet to venture into NG+ as I’m trying to beat all the bosses.

Being able to relive all those brilliant feelings is making this game truly phenomenal.


Now, down to the nitty gritty stuff.

Be warned there will most likely be minor spoilers ahead.

Performance
Bear in mind I do have a fairly beefy pc; check my profile for the specs.
Having played upwards of 50 hours at the time of writing, I have only encountered one area where I suffered frame rate issues. These issues were rather short lived, and did not cause any major hassle thankfully. They occurred in the Lothric Castle area, pushing from the Dragon Barracks bonfire into the castle proper.

Gameplay
During my 50+ hours of gameplay, there have been a few issues with hitboxes with certain enemies, one enemy that irked me the most with this issue was the Reptilian wolf thing on the bridge into Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. This mob caused a few issues with its body causing damage during weird moments where I should not have taken harm. I’ve also noticed the classic extra range thing that some weapons have, though with this being a recurring thing through Souls games it isn’t too much of an issue.

Multiplayer wise I have encountered a few issues. (This could technically come under performance. Though it could well be my internet) During co-op I was often summoned and when my host entered their boss battle I would be unable to pass through the boss fog. This is a particularly annoying one as I had it affect me as a host a few times. I would summon someone to help out, and they would be glitched outside of the boss fog, unable to join. This issue was often accompanied by the no animation bug that I had found to be rather prevalent in multiplayer. However the animation one seems to be far less common, if it’s around at all that is.

Balance
As far as I can tell, weapon balance is perfectly fine for PvE. I can’t say much for PvP however, due to the rampant hackers frightening me away from it. Armour is less balanced; there is the commonly known poise issue, and I’ve seen some things on a problem with physical reduction. The poise one is basically where armour/stat poise does not actually do anything, however weapon/spell buff poise does indeed work. So it’s a weird situation there.

Npc summons are far more accessible in this game, which makes certain boss battles far too easy in my opinion. I found with the Deacons of the Deep boss fight, summoning Anri or Syrris made the fight easy to the point where you could essentially have the summon do the entire battle for you. This is, personally, an issue as it takes away any semblance of challenge from certain boss fights. It’s a similar scenario with a few other bosses.

Lore
As with all Souls games the lore, albeit hard to come by, is rich and fulfilling. With ties to all the classic games, it manages to span stories from Dark Souls one, and mixing in locations and characters from the previous games. It reinvents and revitalises old characters, it ushers in new and complex characters. One thing I did find to be lacking was the dialogue from the NPCs. Upon completing rather significant events their dialogue options would barely change. This is quite unlike FromSoft as many of the NPCs in their other games changed their dialogue when you performed certain tasks. They do however, bring back the classic souls quest lines where you just hopefully stumble upon someone in their time of need and can help them out, all to hopefully receive that Titanite Slab at some point down the line.

Dark Souls III is a perfect entry in a phenomenal franchise, and brilliantly fitting end to the series. It perfectly incorporates the challenge that the Souls Veterans are hoping for, and it has that slight edge for the newer players who want to get into it but are far too intimidated by the intense challenge. It’s got a warm and welcoming community that is always keen to help. It boasts a brilliantly smooth combat, levelling, upgrading, and exploration range. With a story that spans multiple games, it’s got that little bit of lore that’ll bring you back and keep you speculating for years to come. All in all it’s one heck of game, packed full of content, and with DLC down the line it’s only going to get more and more intense!
I give it a 10/10, but hey… I’m biased. These are my favourite games ever!


Keep an eye on this review as I will be updating it when the DLCs are released