Dark Souls III Review Thread

orthodoxy1095 said:
Bloodborne comparisons? "Souls fatigue" hypothesizing?

Oh my, this review thread is already shaping up to be a doozy.
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All frustrating to read garbage, glad I steer clear and enjoy a fantastic game instead.

I imported the Japanese version of Dark Souls 3 from Play-Asia (just like I did for Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, Artorias of the Abyss, 2, Bloodborne, and Old Hunters).

I am only 30 hours in, and I still can't get the grin off my face. I can't wait to play more tomorrow, must buy game people...so fun, level design is fantastic, makes you crave more each time your prey slaughtered sign shows up. Shit I can't even read 75% of it, and I am taking a google translate screenshot every 10 minutes, and I still can't get enough. On top of that, I only have 1 Bloodborne Old Hunters boss left on New Game+ and I didn't consume all 3 umbilical cords before fighting Gehrman on my first play through, so super stoked to fight Moon Presence also. FROM SOFTWARE I bow down to your great games, you have mesmerized me for months now.
 
Hugstable said:
Interesting observation about Demon's Souls though, the bosses in this game feel like the some of the easiest in the series outside of DS2, and even then many of these are easy and most have a gimmick to the fight. The only truly difficult bosses I feel have been Flamelurker, Pentrator and Old Monk (if you end up with someone who's at least decent at the game lol)
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Yeah they're the easiest after DS2. Old Monk is the easiest though if you use the thief ring. Flamelurker, False King Allant and Old Monk without the ring are harder than any boss in the entirery of Dark Souls 2 (non-DLC).
 
Rozart said:
Length-wise is it shorter/longer than BB?
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^^^^^
Did you not play The Old Hunters DLC?

Probably should wait to see how much the 2 DLCs add to the experience...I am assuming the game will be damn near perfect after those are included.
 
HYDE said:
Probably should wait to see how much the 2 DLCs add to the experience...I am assuming the game will be damn near perfect after those are included.
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Yeap, ofcourse! Was just talking about the base games.

Edit: lol, yes I played The Old Hunters DLC.
 
Wtf man, people are really fighting about Bloodborne vs Dark Souls III? Has the level of discussion really devolved to IGN forum levels of childish? The difference between them is like, a couple of percentage points. Step your game up you plebs.

Bloodborne was brilliant, so that's a great sign for Dark Souls III. I'm super psyched for it. Does anyone know if Easy Allies are doing a review for it?
 
Does any review at all talk about the length? I hope it's not 30 hours like Bloodborne, and is more in line with the other 2 Souls games, which are around 50 hours.
 
Even individual areas lack the intricacies seen in the various shortcuts and labyrinthine pathways found in other chapters. There are a few moments of brilliance, that much can’t be denied, but the complex architecture that made my jaw drop in From’s other productions just isn’t there.
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From the Jimquisition review.

That's something I find very disappointing to hear actually since that's one of those design aspects I always enjoyed a lot.
 
Blobbers said:
Does any review at all talk about the length? I hope it's not 30 hours like Bloodborne, and is more in line with the other 2 Souls games, which are around 50 hours.
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Demon's Souls is a 50 hour game?

It sounds like Dark Souls III is a similar length to Bloodborne.
 
Blobbers said:
Does any review at all talk about the length? I hope it's not 30 hours like Bloodborne, and is more in line with the other 2 Souls games, which are around 50 hours.
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It was almost 30 hours on the nose for me, and some friends went a little below that. I'd say it's Bloodborne-length for most folks.
 
Tekkie said:
From the Jimquisition review.

That's something I find very disappointing to hear actually since that's one of those design aspects I always enjoyed a lot.
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Maybe people complained to much about too much possible direction in the previous games?
 
By the way, what is the reason that Open Critic always gets linked to in these topics, but not gamerankings? Both are exclusively catering to games, just that gamerankings is complete and Open Critic is excluding handhelds, so I would think that both have the same advantgaes over Metacritic, but Open Critic has an additional disadvantage, no?
 
StrongBlackVine said:
Bloodborne is still the crown jewel, but Dark Souls III will be one of the best games of the year as expected.
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This opinion keeps being parroted, yet no one seems to actually give any valid reasons why.
The only thing the game improved upon to me is melee focused combat. That's it, (even then it wasn't so much improved as morphed into something slightly different, and was very fluid) and it was a downgrade in virtually every other aspect. A lot of people keep citing the "amazing atmosphere", yet Demon's Souls completely blows it away, and I'm not talking about the most cited area for atmosphere either; Latria.
 
Karak said:
They released a review on completely old versions?
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The review was based on 1.01/their debug version provided to them by FROM, current version is 1.02 released on 3/29. One of the things 1.02 did is fix a bug that causes extreme slowdowns that only happen in offline mode, as well as other performance updates.

Tekkie said:
From the Jimquisition review.

That's something I find very disappointing to hear actually since that's one of those design aspects I always enjoyed a lot.
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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.
 
Shinjica said:
Maybe people complained to much about too much possible direction in the previous games?
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I've never heard anyone complain about that actually, only if it was too linear. But then again I don't know what Japanese fans of the series say of course, so maybe there.

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.
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So you're saying it's more along the lines of BB's type of level design, is that a correct understanding?
 
tcrunch said:
The review was based on 1.01/their debug version provided to them by FROM, current version is 1.02 released on 3/29. One of the things 1.02 did is fix a bug that causes extreme slowdowns that only happen in offline mode, as well as other performance updates.



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.
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Yep. It's crazy that some people think the level design in DS3 is weak.
 
Yoshi said:
By the way, what is the reason that Open Critic always gets linked to in these topics, but not gamerankings? Both are exclusively catering to games, just that gamerankings is complete and Open Critic is excluding handhelds, so I would think that both have the same advantgaes over Metacritic, but Open Critic has an additional disadvantage, no?
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I presume you mean mobile and not handheld.

To be honest, not having mobile phone game reviews is a good idea in the early days of the website, as there is such a flood of mobile games. Also, mobile game critics inflate their scores ridiculously (Look at the high scores for Metacritic on mobile, and you will find games like Scrabble for Ipad with a higher score than any of the Souls game)

Anyway, Opencritic gets more attention as it is more reliable, balanced, and easier to use than Game Rankings.
 
MineralCraver420 said:
I presume you mean mobile and not handheld.
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No, I meant handheld, when I last visited that website (which I don't like to do due to the campy black style) they did not cover dedicated handhelds. Not covering phone stuff is certainly a positive.

Anyway, Opencritic gets more attention as it is more reliable, balanced, and easier to use than Game Rankings.
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In what way is it either of these three?
 
So it seems that the general consensus is that DS>DS2>DS3

DS1 can't be topped but I'm curious if people will end up liking DS3 more over DS2 in the long run. DS2 was an extremely polarizing game
 
Our review can be found here: http://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps4/dark_souls_iii

Review in progress while we wait to properly test the online. Very positive, though:

Dark Souls III is another triumph of the imagination for FromSoftware, a studio which surely now must rank as one of Japan's leading talents. The company's Souls series has a near-flawless track record and after the cult nature of Demon's Souls has thankfully found a large and receptive mainstream audience – not bad for a franchise which delights in being obtuse and hair-pulling tricky in equal measure. Dark Souls III is arguably the most accomplished entry yet, refining the core mechanics and cunningly utilizing next-generation hardware to excellent effect.
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http://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps4/dark_souls_iii
 
Blobbers said:
Does any review at all talk about the length? I hope it's not 30 hours like Bloodborne, and is more in line with the other 2 Souls games, which are around 50 hours.
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Length of Souls games depends largely on your familiarity with the franchise. Dark Souls 1 was the third Souls game I've completed (after Demon's and Bloodborne) and it took me 36 hours with DLC, which is how long vanilla Bloodborne was for me (minus Chalice dungeons) and only a bit longer than my first, disastrous playthrough of Demon's Souls.
 
Sub Zero said:
So it seems that the general consensus is that DS>DS2>DS3

DS1 can't be topped but I'm curious if people will end up liking DS3 more over DS2 in the long run. DS2 was an extremely polarizing game
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Going by review scores maybe but amongst most players it seems to be 3 is favored over 2.
 
Sub Zero said:
So it seems that the general consensus is that DS>DS2>DS3
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tumblr_nn2fwh5wVs1qd479ro1_1280.gif
 
Yoshi said:
No, I meant handheld, when I last visited that website (which I don't like to do due to the campy black style) they did not cover dedicated handhelds. Not covering phone stuff is certainly a positive.



In what way is it either of these three?
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Firstly, have you used the website recently? There are handheld reviews there.

It's more balanced because there is no weighting bullshit like Metacritic and (rumored) Gameranking does. Weighting basically makes some website's scores worth more in terms of the average, which can make things unbalanced.
 
Tekkie said:
I've never heard anyone complain about that actually, only if it was too linear. But then again I don't know what Japanese fans of the series say of course, so maybe there.?
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People complained the difficulty of the first game bacause they went directly in the cemetery and petite londo. Limiting their possibility dont make this happen anymore
 
Sub Zero said:
So it seems that the general consensus is that DS>DS2>DS3

DS1 can't be topped but I'm curious if people will end up liking DS3 more over DS2 in the long run. DS2 was an extremely polarizing game
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What do you mean general consensus?I you mean the critics then it clearly is DS2>DS3=DS1 or maybe even DS3>DS1.

If you mean people then almost everyone puts it above DS2 and on par with DS1 so no the general consensus is NOT DS>DS2>DS3
 
ponpo said:
Going by review scores maybe but amongst most players it seems to be 3 is favored over 2.
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If we wanted to be a bunch of dummies and go by review scores, wouldn't it go something like DkS2 > DkS3 > DkS?

In any case, no, the consensus isn't 1 > 2 > 3. Going by the import OT, most seem to agree that 3 is either on par with 1 or just slightly worse, but still very good/better than 2.

jimboton said:
And this is the most worrying of all! :p
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Yoshi has a fairly... interesting way of using the point scale. Check out his post history, he posted something about it some days ago.
 
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