Dark Souls III Review Thread

you guys really bugging out over one average review score?

yes it is more linear but I never really even thought about it all that much while playing through it because it's still extremely well designed...it's a fantastic game.
 
Havel said:
Miyazaki better publicly apologise or he can kiss his business goodbye.
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no, Havel no.. just go to your hollow state in the closed tower...

He needs to resign his head position at FS because it is simply unacceptable... UNACCEPTABLE I SAY
 
Timeaisis said:
OK, so unimportant shortcut to other zones aside, how is the actual level design in this game? You know, like the level design of the zones.

I love how some of you are abstracting it into one node. "Look at this boring map." Yeah, when you make every area represented by a damn circle it looks super dull, people.
Click to expand...

Well...

tcrunch said:
Here is my professionally drawn map of the overarching world.

The cutscene after Area 9 can occur at some other points too but I'm leaving it as the most basic path for now.

Anything with an arrow and without a text remark means you walk to it from the previous area, though it may be past a boss or some other kind of gatekeeper.
Click to expand...
tcrunch said:
one of its biggest strengths is that individual levels are incredibly layered and every time you think you've got it all done and all figured out, you find a whole new section you have yet to explore.
Click to expand...
 
Timeaisis said:
OK, so unimportant shortcut to other zones aside, how is the actual level design in this game? You know, like the level design of the zones.

I love how some of you are abstracting it into one node. "Look at this boring map." Yeah, when you make every area represented by a damn circle it looks super dull, people.
Click to expand...

The actual levels themselves are rad. There are some obvious stinkers that seem like they ran out of time and just abruptly stopped designing stuff (
Aldrich and Yohrm
being the two biggest offenders), but for the most part the levels are amazing.

It just kind of rubs me the wrong way that people have to go out of their way to damage control something that they don't have to. The game is awesome as it is, no need to obfuscate the reality of the game to people and pointlessly build up unrealistic expectations that the game is not going to be able to meet.
 
Timeaisis said:
OK, so unimportant shortcut to other zones aside, how is the actual level design in this game? You know, like the level design of the zones.

I love how some of you are abstracting it into one node. "Look at this boring map." Yeah, when you make every area represented by a damn circle it looks super dull, people.
Click to expand...

I discussed it in my review. I thought the vertically was excellent and the pathing and enemy placement was well done for the most part with one or two issues here and there with some pretty long boss sprints if you died. But overall I liked it a great deal.
 
Timeaisis said:
OK, so unimportant shortcut to other zones aside, how is the actual level design in this game? You know, like the level design of the zones.

I love how some of you are abstracting it into one node. "Look at this boring map." Yeah, when you make every area represented by a damn circle it looks super dull, people.
Click to expand...

I think it's a great game. I was a bit lukewarm on the "same-iness" of the game (though playing the network test in October plays into that as well) in the beginning, but it turns into something very special as you go through it. There are some very interesting and cool callbacks to previous games which I won't spoil here, but if you're a Souls fan, I highly doubt you'll be disappointed. For reference, I've played all of the Souls, Bloodborne, and King's Field on PS2. I only played the PS4 version in Japanese so undoubtedly missed out on some of the lore and other intricasies, but it's another great Souls game undoubtedly. In terms of where it stands in the hierarchy of other entries is a fairly personal thing, so I can't really speak to that (I'm a fan of all of them).
 
ogbg said:
No. Roll distance is inversely linked to equip load. I still haven't worked out if this adds i-frames too or not but it does make dodging much easier regadless.
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The primary benefit of additional roll distance is that once your i-frames end, you're less likely to get clipped by some tracking bullshit, or hitboxes that extend way beyond their visual cue. It's mostly a bandaid fix for programming issues.
 
Sanctuary said:
The primary benefit of additional roll distance is that once your i-frames end, you're less likely to get clipped by some tracking bullshit, or hitboxes that extend way beyond their visual cue.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. It makes a pretty noticable difference. Found that out in a couple battles.
 
pa22word said:
The actual levels themselves are rad. There are some obvious stinkers that seem like they ran out of time and just abruptly stopped designing stuff (
Aldrich and Yohrm
being the two biggest offenders), but for the most part the levels are amazing.

It just kind of rubs me the wrong way that people have to go out of their way to damage control something that they don't have to. The game is awesome as it is, no need to obfuscate the reality of the game to people and pointlessly build up unrealistic expectations that the game is not going to be able to make.
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to damage control. That's how I played it and afterwards I thought about how it could have been different. My complaint is that
there are too many shit bosses at the start
, not that it felt too linear.
 
The Polygon review also mentions that in the PS4 version the game's framerate dips into the single digits. Yiiiiikes.

PS4K can't come soon enough.

Neoweee said:
PLEASE

STOP

SPOILING

YOURSELVES


You are doing yourself a giant disservice for nothing.
Click to expand...

I really wish they would stop posting the game's layout!
 
tcrunch said:
This was not my experience when playing the game, one of its biggest strengths is that individual levels are incredibly layered and every time you think you've got it all done and all figured out, you find a whole new section you have yet to explore. The weakness is compared to DS1 the levels themselves are not wildly interconnected, it's more like DS2 where things radiate out along their separate paths.
Click to expand...
This is fine by me. As much as I love the way everything is nicely connected in BB, if the zones themselves are fun (and as you said, layered), I'm good.
 
So, looking at reviews, I get the impression Miyazaki and FROM did their best, but are beginning to suffer from burnout/creative-sterility from having pumped out new Souls content for the past five years straight.

I mean, I get now why Miyazaki wants this to be the last one: He's running out of ideas because he's made nothing but Souls the past six years.
 
cLOUDo said:
disappointment, at least the
bleeding sun is still a thing?
the best part of bloodborne if when they change all the world after beating rom and the insight's stuff
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Yes but
the scene looks NOTHING like that. Not even close to amazing as that pic.
 
GavinGT said:
DS3's world basically looks like this:

UYW9OLn.png
Click to expand...
While this image is worrying, I'll wait until I get the feel of it. I hope I'm not disappointed.

Can you still run past big areas to grab a specific weapon and return to where you started(more or less) or are certain weapons unattainable without clearing certain bosses/areas?
 
I think it's pretty obvious this was done by the B team. A team barely finished Bloodborne so no way they touched this. They're probably working on Bloodborne 2 right now, so I'm skipping this.

Am I doing this trolling thing right?
 
Odrion said:
The Polygon review also mentions that in the PS4 version the game's framerate dips into the single digits. Yiiiiikes.

PS4K can't come soon enough.



I really wish they would stop posting the game's layout!
Click to expand...

I hear the PC version manages that in certain areas too. There are no surprises on that front.
 
twozerotwo said:
Can you still run past big areas to grab a specific weapon and return to where you started(more or less) or are certain weapons unattainable without clearing certain bosses/areas?
Click to expand...

There are weapons locked behind bosses/areas, you can also
get the crystal magic material and some other things
after defeating a total of 3 bosses if you're gud. Wherever the path branches you are allowed to prioritize the path that takes you to your weapon or whatever.
 
ogbg said:
I'm not trying to damage control. That's how I played it and afterwards I thought about how it could have been different.
Click to expand...

It really reads as damage control.

90% of people who play the game are not going to arbitrarily warp around after doing some of this area, then some of that area. They're just going to play to the stopping point then go the other way.

In reality, there's only about
4
different variances people are going to experience on their way to the end of the game.
High Wall > Deacons > Wolnir, or High wall > Wolnir > Deacons

then
Aldrich > Yhorm or Yhorm > Aldrich

After that it's a linear beeline to the end of the game with no variance unless you randomly stumble onto some of the super obfuscated hidden areas, only one of which you can realistically be able to find without looking at a wiki to find it, and only that one if you're playing online.
 
pa22word said:
After that it's a linear beeline to the end of the game with no variance unless you randomly stumble onto some of the super obfuscated hidden areas, only one of which you can realistically be able to find without looking at a wiki to find it, and only that one if you're playing online.
Click to expand...

I found that one secret area on my own and I was legit shook when the trigger happened.
 
pa22word said:
.
Click to expand...

There's alot of dumb in this post.
1) The same could be said for ds1,unless you have lordvessel there is "one" path, and you need a master key not to do that path.
2) I found everything in the first 30 hours of release with no help, this community should have no trouble at all finding the hidden areas
 
cons and pros aside, it's pretty impressive that From made 3 90+MS games in 3 years

now I hope their next game is a full blown Berserk game.

believe.

NEO0MJ said:
I think it's pretty obvious this was done by the B team. A team barely finished Bloodborne so no way they touched this. They're probably working on Bloodborne 2 right now, so I'm skipping this.

Am I doing this trolling thing right?
Click to expand...

No
.
 
pa22word said:
It really reads as damage control.

90% of people who play the game are not going to arbitrarily warp around after doing some of this area, then some of that area. They're just going to play to the stopping point then go the other way.

In reality, there's only about
4
different variances people are going to experience on their way to the end of the game.
High Wall > Deacons > Wolnir, or High wall > Wolnir > Deacons

then
Aldrich > Yhorm or Yhorm > Aldrich

After that it's a linear beeline to the end of the game with no variance unless you randomly stumble onto some of the super obfuscated hidden areas, only one of which you can realistically be able to find without looking at a wiki to find it, and only that one if you're playing online.
Click to expand...

Honestly I have no interest in controlling damage if there even is any. I was originally responding to someone who said that they only once felt like they had lots of ways to go. In my experience I felt like this more often than that and I described the scenarios that gave me this feeling. It now turns out that only 10% of people play the game like that but I wasn't aware of that when I posted.
 
GwyndolinCinder said:
There's alot of dumb in this post.
1) The same could be said for ds1,unless you have lordvessel there is "one" path, and you need a master key not to do that path.
Click to expand...

You don't actually. Just go through
Darkroot Garden
to get to
Valley of Drakes
if you don't have the key.
Depths
and
Upper Blighttown
are totally optional with or without the key
 
I've finished the game once on PS4 using a sword and shield vanilla STR with a bit of a DEX build and defeated all of the optional bosses and areas, too. I did have help on quite a few bosses, though.

Right now, the game sits right alongside Dark Souls II (which I really loved) for me. I wouldn't put it above the original, but that's probably not a fair comparison to make.

The "greatest hits" description some reviewers are using definitely resonates with me. It feels like they took a lot of the cool stuff from each of the past Soulsborne games and poured it all into one really consistently excellent package. At the same time, it very much has a "been there, done that" feeling a lot of the time and, quite honestly, feels like it has less of a unique identity when compared to the other games in the series.

Either way, I'm reserving judgment until I have time to do a full solo run on PC. 60 FPS is so important for this kind of game, where you are timing rolls and worrying about iframes, etc. that it doesn't feel fair to me to form a final opinion until I've played that version.

I imagine it will be my personal game of the year, though, just like Dark Souls II, Dark Souls, and Demon's Souls were.
 
I very much disagree with this portion of the Polygon review:

Dark Souls 3's level design feels less ... intentional, in a way that extends well beyond the size or complexity of the world. At a Souls game's best, finding a bonfire to rest at or unlocking a new shortcut brings an intense wave of relief, a sense of exhilaration at having survived the latest challenge. Here, I was left saying 'huh?' or shrugging my shoulders just as often as I felt positive. So many of the shortcuts are spaced poorly, presented at moments where they don't really make a significant impact.

In one particularly noteworthy instance near the end of the game, I defeated a tough boss, which places a bonfire in the boss room. I rested up and left the room to explore the next area and, less than a minute's walk from the boss room, still in sight of that bonfire, I found ... another bonfire.
Click to expand...

The bonfires mentioned are there as quick teleports back to firelink after you start the boss. And a quick telport back to the next area. If you play through Demon's Souls in a linear fashion you will see the same exact thing. A bonfire in the boss room and then one soon after in the next area. It's the same thing here, and it's deliberate. To have this be a knock against the world feeling "intentional" just seems completely wrong to me. At the very least, maybe think of a different example.

There is so much care taken in things like item placement, segments evoking the atmosphere/layout of things from other games in the series. I don't understand the argument that the world is not "intentional" at all. This is a game where (very minor early spoiler)
you'll find a hand axe on the ground next to a pyromancer you rescue... aka the starting weapon for a pyromancer in DS1
. The game is absolutely filled with these little deliberate things and it makes the world more cohesive. It's one of the things I like most about the game so again, I really don't get this complaint.
 
Get'sMad said:
you guys really bugging out over one average review score?

yes it is more linear but I never really even thought about it all that much while playing through it because it's still extremely well designed...it's a fantastic game.
Click to expand...

The areas are so fucking large and on a grander scale that the linearity simply does not matter at all. Some of these areas are so twisty and cleverly designed that they are essentially miniature, complex areas with their own interlocking parts, like smaller, more ornate and detailed versions of DaS's world.
 
convo said:
I hear the PC version manages that in certain areas too. There are no surprises on that front.
Click to expand...

Other than the frame pacing issues from Bloodborne that bring the whole experience down, the PS4 frame rate is a lot more consistent than any past Souls original releases on console.

Sullichin said:
I very much disagree with this portion of the Polygon review:
Click to expand...

I kind of get what the reviewer was saying. Some of the bonfires felt really strangely placed. I definitely had a few "huh?" moments and rarely did I experience that "wave of relief" that I got from finding bonfires and shortcuts in Dark Souls and Dark Souls II. A lot of the shortcuts really did feel a bit pointless to me, and most of them were telegraphed to the player well ahead of time. So so many elevator shafts that don't work until later.
 
Obviously not reading a single review, but are there areas like Cainhurst and Ash Lake that you can easily miss and will make you say "wow, I can't believe From would make this much content optional in 2016"?
 
redflamingolingo said:
The areas are so fucking large and on a grander scale that the linearity simply does not matter at all. Some of these areas are so twisty and cleverly designed that they are essentially miniature, complex areas with their own interlocking parts, like smaller, more ornate and detailed versions of DaS's world.
Click to expand...

This comment seriously hyped me.

gbpackers25 said:
Quick question, as someone who has only played Bloodborne would this be a good place to start?
Click to expand...

Might as well.

Playing Dark Souls 3 won't invalidate your enjoyment of playing prior Souls games later on. The Souls story is never necessary to play previous games, though it will help you understand the lore.
 
Blobbers said:
Obviously not reading a single review, but are there areas like Cainhurst and Ash Lake that you can easily miss and will make you say "wow, I can't believe From would make this much content optional in 2016"?
Click to expand...

Definitely.

I beat the final boss two nights ago, but spent yesterday going through the optional content that I missed and all of it was absolutely incredible.

One of them is (in my opinion) really well hidden, too.
 
Zocano said:
Dark Souls 2 gets better as it goes, personally. And if you have the dlc or sotfs, you have some of the best content in the series ahead of you. Nothing like the slog that is Dark Souls 1's latter half.
Click to expand...

Only if you're counting the three DLC, since they all came out after the game was already finished. It doesn't really get any better as you progress through the main game, it just has a lot of peaks and valleys in regards to quality throughout. Majula, Huntman's Copse and Heide's Tower are the earliest areas in the game, and they also happen to look the best, and there's not much comparable aesthetically until the Dragon Aerie.

The DLC is on such an entirely different level that it shouldn't even be considered part of the main game.

Neoweee said:
Dark Souls 3, with a "regular" build has the best progression and difficulty curve of the series, IMO. That's what happened.

Each game has its own world design philosophy. Dark Souls 3 lost a bunch of replayability, but made the best overall adventure for the first playthrough.
Click to expand...

That's absolutely shitty to hear. That's the primary reason why Bloodborne is my least replayed of the bunch. The initial playthrough was great. After that though? Zzzz...

Neoweee said:
It likely overlapped with Dark Souls 2 core development. There's a lot of design work and prototyping that can overlap with the later phases of development.
Click to expand...

I think you mean it likely overlapped Bloodborne's development. Unless you believe that they had three different teams working on these games, or you're just saying that a lot of the foundation was already finished (the engine) before they had to start the brunt of the project?
 
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