lostforever
SasqWatch
Tldr: DS3 is the second best game I have ever played and the best game in the last 10 years. The best game ever being Morrowind.
I haven’t finished 80% of all the games(mostly RPGs) I have started in the last few years. I will play them for a while and then take break for whatever reason and then I don’t really have any motivation to go back to those games. I just drift away from the modern RPGs. Few months ago I was wondering maybe I am done with gaming for good! This was kind of scary since gaming has been my major hobby and I didn’t want to lose that. I decided to break away from my comfort zone and try something completely different so picked up DS3 since it just got released and was in the news. I avoided the souls games in the past since people say they are really difficult and you need to have good reflex to play them so I had my doubts about DS3 as well.
I played Knight class and clocked in around 100+ hours and got to soul level 90. All bosses down.
Combat and Difficulty
DS3 is the hardest game I have ever played but at no point during the game I felt it was impossible. I died in excess of 30 or 40 times to some bosses and in other games I would have rage quite by this point but not in DS3. At this point, think of the Mario games. You know that a jump in Mario is never impossible it’s just matter of get your timing and technique right and you know that it will come with practice so you don’t have to give up the game. This is exactly the same feeling I got playing DS3 and I was actually treating DS3 as a Mario game! I think this is a very clever game design by From Software. They let the player know that mobs are not impossible to beat so your don’t feel like you are hitting on a brick wall.
Another very clever game design is that there are multiple ways to beat mobs. If you have good reflex/timing skills then you can simply dodge/parry the mobs and kill them easily. You can ignore the RPG side of the game and still beat it. Apparently someone beat the entire game as level 1 character! However leveling up your character and gear makes a huge difference as well but never trivialize the encounters. One of the big problems in some recent RPGs is that leveling up and getting gear doesn’t really matter or that leveling up and getting gear makes you a god. I think DS3 balances this out very nicely. Leveling up and gear makes a difference but I can easily get killed if I wasn’t careful or get cocky.
For me personally and I guess for most people, its combination of learning do dodge/parry as well leveling up and getting gear got me though the game. I have only learned to parry some mobs towards the end of the game and I am still not very good at dodging so you can see that you don’t need huge reflex skills t beat the game.
One of the side effect of the high difficulty is that you are forced to learn the systems in place. You have to learn the mobs attack pattern, you learn the terrain/environment, you learn the attack patterns on your weapon and how they sort of interact with the endurance etc. In effect you learn what you can do and what you can’t do and then you look for loop holes and exploit them to the fullest and the payoff is the great feeling of triumph! I hardly go up one on one against most “elite” mobs. I normally hide behind or climb up something and shoot arrows at them, run away from them and then shoot more arrows. Or I will use silence spell to sneak behind them to get nice backstab attack etc. The game allows so many tricks like this to beat the mobs and its really rewarding once you learn do these things.
Atmosphere
Moving away from combat, the game has an excellent atmosphere. They capture the Gothic horror world feel perfectly. There is something off about the whole thing and you get very unsettling feeling. There is also danger too lurking behind very corner so you need to be careful and weary. The high difficulty of the game actually plays even into this. One of the most beautiful and rewarding sight in the whole game is the sight of a bonfire! You feel sort of relived upon reaching a new bonfire since you know that all your precise souls you collected are now safe! Another rewarding sight is coming across a friendly NPC. After countless hours of killing those undead (or are they hollows?) and feeling depressed, now a friendly soul who might say something!
Level design
As with the rest of the game, there is no hand holding here as well. The game doesn’t have any mini map or even a world map or even quest markers etc. You are on your own to navigate and find your way around meticulously designed zones. Many of the zones loop back on themselves. There is loads of verticality as well in the design. Its great feeling to find shorts cuts and learn your way around the maps finding treasures in all sort of nooks and crannies. There are loads of unique and epics zones to explore. From some high places, you can sort of see the whole of the game world and see where you have been and where you are going. One of my favorite zone is Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. It has amazing art direction and for me the hardest boss in the entire game!
Story and Lore
DS3 says so much with so little words. The theme of difficulty strike here as well. Story isn’t spoon fed to you and you really have to dig deep to figure out what’s going on. To be honest I don’ think I have figured out exactly what’s going on with the story but I think I have some understanding of it. Anyway enough to make sense of the world and what I am doing in relation to game ending and NPC quests and how I resolved them etc. This again is another clever game design since I think different people are going to come out of with different understanding of the game’s story and lore.
The most important thing about story and lore in DS3 is that, they don’t get in the way of game play or game play get in the way of story! The story never take over the gameplay as well, and its mainly there to give you some motivation for killing all those bosses. I think recently, story was taking over from game play in many RPGs. I don’t have huge issue with them but I found that game play systems were lacking and not interesting so I was just putting the game on easy setting to get through it.
DS3 also allows players sort of create their own stories as well. My story of how I defeated some bosses, how I cleared some dungeons etc. I can talk about DS3 how I did certain stuff all day with someone and I can’t say that about any other game other than Morrowind!
Technical stuff
I played DS3 on PC. All setting maxed and I was getting 60 FPS steady on GTX 970. No crashes or any other technical issue with the game. I played with mouse and keyboard and no issue with controls. I know some people say controller is better but I don’t better and I didn’t feel the M+K was lacking in anyway. The help text on UI assume a controller and won’t change even if you are using mouse and keyboard.
Summary
I think I posted this before but in most RPGs the character levels up but I feel that me the player has leveled up in DS3! It’s an amazing feeling which I haven’ t had it in long time. Also it has taught me that I can still play games without the modern tools such as mini map etc and in fact the game is much better without them. You get much more immersive experience. Anyway if you are someone who is bit bored of the current games you are playing then give DS3 a go and I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised!
Addendum
I have seen in some forums people asking for game to have multiple levels of difficulty. I think it will be mistake in that difficulty is *the game*. Overcoming the difficulty is in all aspect of the game. It’s there even for story. So if you remove that, you will not have the same experience most people have with the game and everyone will be worse off for it.
Dark Souls 1, here I come!
I haven’t finished 80% of all the games(mostly RPGs) I have started in the last few years. I will play them for a while and then take break for whatever reason and then I don’t really have any motivation to go back to those games. I just drift away from the modern RPGs. Few months ago I was wondering maybe I am done with gaming for good! This was kind of scary since gaming has been my major hobby and I didn’t want to lose that. I decided to break away from my comfort zone and try something completely different so picked up DS3 since it just got released and was in the news. I avoided the souls games in the past since people say they are really difficult and you need to have good reflex to play them so I had my doubts about DS3 as well.
I played Knight class and clocked in around 100+ hours and got to soul level 90. All bosses down.
Combat and Difficulty
DS3 is the hardest game I have ever played but at no point during the game I felt it was impossible. I died in excess of 30 or 40 times to some bosses and in other games I would have rage quite by this point but not in DS3. At this point, think of the Mario games. You know that a jump in Mario is never impossible it’s just matter of get your timing and technique right and you know that it will come with practice so you don’t have to give up the game. This is exactly the same feeling I got playing DS3 and I was actually treating DS3 as a Mario game! I think this is a very clever game design by From Software. They let the player know that mobs are not impossible to beat so your don’t feel like you are hitting on a brick wall.
Another very clever game design is that there are multiple ways to beat mobs. If you have good reflex/timing skills then you can simply dodge/parry the mobs and kill them easily. You can ignore the RPG side of the game and still beat it. Apparently someone beat the entire game as level 1 character! However leveling up your character and gear makes a huge difference as well but never trivialize the encounters. One of the big problems in some recent RPGs is that leveling up and getting gear doesn’t really matter or that leveling up and getting gear makes you a god. I think DS3 balances this out very nicely. Leveling up and gear makes a difference but I can easily get killed if I wasn’t careful or get cocky.
For me personally and I guess for most people, its combination of learning do dodge/parry as well leveling up and getting gear got me though the game. I have only learned to parry some mobs towards the end of the game and I am still not very good at dodging so you can see that you don’t need huge reflex skills t beat the game.
One of the side effect of the high difficulty is that you are forced to learn the systems in place. You have to learn the mobs attack pattern, you learn the terrain/environment, you learn the attack patterns on your weapon and how they sort of interact with the endurance etc. In effect you learn what you can do and what you can’t do and then you look for loop holes and exploit them to the fullest and the payoff is the great feeling of triumph! I hardly go up one on one against most “elite” mobs. I normally hide behind or climb up something and shoot arrows at them, run away from them and then shoot more arrows. Or I will use silence spell to sneak behind them to get nice backstab attack etc. The game allows so many tricks like this to beat the mobs and its really rewarding once you learn do these things.
Atmosphere
Moving away from combat, the game has an excellent atmosphere. They capture the Gothic horror world feel perfectly. There is something off about the whole thing and you get very unsettling feeling. There is also danger too lurking behind very corner so you need to be careful and weary. The high difficulty of the game actually plays even into this. One of the most beautiful and rewarding sight in the whole game is the sight of a bonfire! You feel sort of relived upon reaching a new bonfire since you know that all your precise souls you collected are now safe! Another rewarding sight is coming across a friendly NPC. After countless hours of killing those undead (or are they hollows?) and feeling depressed, now a friendly soul who might say something!
Level design
As with the rest of the game, there is no hand holding here as well. The game doesn’t have any mini map or even a world map or even quest markers etc. You are on your own to navigate and find your way around meticulously designed zones. Many of the zones loop back on themselves. There is loads of verticality as well in the design. Its great feeling to find shorts cuts and learn your way around the maps finding treasures in all sort of nooks and crannies. There are loads of unique and epics zones to explore. From some high places, you can sort of see the whole of the game world and see where you have been and where you are going. One of my favorite zone is Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. It has amazing art direction and for me the hardest boss in the entire game!
Story and Lore
DS3 says so much with so little words. The theme of difficulty strike here as well. Story isn’t spoon fed to you and you really have to dig deep to figure out what’s going on. To be honest I don’ think I have figured out exactly what’s going on with the story but I think I have some understanding of it. Anyway enough to make sense of the world and what I am doing in relation to game ending and NPC quests and how I resolved them etc. This again is another clever game design since I think different people are going to come out of with different understanding of the game’s story and lore.
The most important thing about story and lore in DS3 is that, they don’t get in the way of game play or game play get in the way of story! The story never take over the gameplay as well, and its mainly there to give you some motivation for killing all those bosses. I think recently, story was taking over from game play in many RPGs. I don’t have huge issue with them but I found that game play systems were lacking and not interesting so I was just putting the game on easy setting to get through it.
DS3 also allows players sort of create their own stories as well. My story of how I defeated some bosses, how I cleared some dungeons etc. I can talk about DS3 how I did certain stuff all day with someone and I can’t say that about any other game other than Morrowind!
Technical stuff
I played DS3 on PC. All setting maxed and I was getting 60 FPS steady on GTX 970. No crashes or any other technical issue with the game. I played with mouse and keyboard and no issue with controls. I know some people say controller is better but I don’t better and I didn’t feel the M+K was lacking in anyway. The help text on UI assume a controller and won’t change even if you are using mouse and keyboard.
Summary
I think I posted this before but in most RPGs the character levels up but I feel that me the player has leveled up in DS3! It’s an amazing feeling which I haven’ t had it in long time. Also it has taught me that I can still play games without the modern tools such as mini map etc and in fact the game is much better without them. You get much more immersive experience. Anyway if you are someone who is bit bored of the current games you are playing then give DS3 a go and I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised!
Addendum
I have seen in some forums people asking for game to have multiple levels of difficulty. I think it will be mistake in that difficulty is *the game*. Overcoming the difficulty is in all aspect of the game. It’s there even for story. So if you remove that, you will not have the same experience most people have with the game and everyone will be worse off for it.
Dark Souls 1, here I come!
I'll message ya next week.
I heard about the DSFix mod for it so will use it as well. 
