Sure, its a cycle, but its a different one. All the bosses who carry the Lord Souls (that you can only get in NG+ as a kind of easter egg) are different ones. Theres merit in saying that they are bad, but they are not rehashes.
Dark Firelink Shrine is straight up stolen from the Old Abandoned Workshop. Even people in the Bloodborne OT were kinda icky that Myazaki just repeated the idea.
The concept of a light and dark world wasn't invented by Bloodborne, has existed in fiction for hundreds of years and many other videogames long before. It wasn't "stolen" from Bloodborne. The two also serve entirely different purposes in the story. Bloodborne's Hunter Workshop is there to establish the difference between reality and alternate dimensions of sleep/dreams. If you're going to complain about being creatively bankrupt based on something like that, you should know that that whole idea, along with Bloodborne's creature design, art direction and lore is based heavily off of the literary works of HP Lovecraft, and all elements of it have existed in many games previous to it.
The "Dark" firelink is there to concretely express the idea that time in Lordran is convoluted and doesn't make sense. Because while that
should logically be a vision of the future, it's a vision of the past, it's already happened prior to the events of Dark Souls III.
This idea was also not invented by Dark Souls or Bloodborne. A time paradox is something that's existed in literature for hundreds of years.
So no, it wasn't taken from Bloodborne.
And in what way are Ornstien and the Bell Gargoyles not rehashes but Anor Londo is? They're ripped straight from Dark Souls 1 with no reason it explanation to exist within Dark Souls 2.
At least in the case of Anor Londo it's different, it shows the passage of time, the city grew cold and froze over with the absence of sunlight and the eternal night, in addition to the entire Pontiff storyline which is about him trying to usurp the positions of the gods as ruler. which is why he traps sickly Gwyndolin and feeds him to Aldritch, to both get rid of a powerful enemy and to strengthen a powerful character that's loyal to the Pontiff, who's all about manipulation to the point where he didn't stop at trying to trap Gwyndolin, but also wipe out the entire god Blood line (The dancer, Possibly rosaria) He also influences Prince Lothric into not linking the fire so that Aldritch and the Pontiff can bring on the age of the Deep who's influence is spread from Irithyll all the way down to the church with the Pontiff's outriders occupying Lothric Castle.
It's easy to go "Wow what a rehash!" If youve got no idea what's going on, but it would be stupid for that entire thing to play out anywhere other than Anor Londo, of which you hardly spend any time in anyway, you spend most of your time in Irithyll, the lower city (which people had wanted to see in the first game) and there's the fact that Anor Londo is reasonably different from the first games depiction of it. Smouldering Lake and the Demon Ruins have a lot of reason to exist in the game too, and there's a clever reason as to why the Abyss Watchers resemble Artorias so closely, and its for irony rather than fan service. The whole game is like this, and to write it all off as a rehash comes off as incredibly disingenuous and over simplifying.
There's merit in every design decision in this game and that's another reason I feel it's a masterpiece, unfortunately a lot of that nuance goes unnoticed unless it's straight up told to you in game, which isn't what this series about.
If you're dissatisfied with fewer new locales, fine whatever that's a fair reason to be upset and an equally fair. If you don't care about the lore, that's fair too, I know not everyone plays and enjoys these games the same way i do.To call any of the areas in the game a rehash outside of Irithyll jail would be a fallacy and dishonest considering its a sequel capitalizing on its established lore, which is by definition what a sequel is.
I would argue that the combat is actually the worst in the series. I mean, I'll give it points for flashiness, which it easily has going over previous entries, but flashiness does not a good combat system make.
They royally fucked up the balance between player ability and enemy movesets. It's very, VERY easy to end up with movesets that are simply not designed to deal with enemies that are as fast and aggressive as most of the enemies in this game. I tried to play through the game two-handing a spear and it was one of the most arduous, torturous experiences I have ever voluntarily endured.
This, by the way, is something that 2 nails. People complain about the "floaty" combat but it absolutely gets the balance between player speed and power versus enemy movesets. This is doubly reinforced by poise actually being a functional mechanic and weapons actually being balanced worth a damn.
It's so bad going from 2 to 3 that I have yet to complete a second playthrough of the game. It's the only entry in the series that has done this to me. I literally have no motivation to go through it again. I wish I could agree with regards to its other high points but even those are arguable for me. When the core gameplay loop is so frustrating and so unsatisfying it's really hard for anything to make up for it.
Just one of those things, I suppose.
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree, but I'll be fair and say that I really only use swords anyway, so my opinion on different move sets, and playstyles is pretty moot. That being said though, as long as you can dodge out of the way (which is quite easy to do, in Dark Souls 3 especially) and get behind the enemy I don't see why you'd be having any more trouble whether it be a spear or a sword. Dark Souls 3 just requires you to make more play-style adjustments to compensate for your shortcomings if that's your issue. But I can definitely see how it would be frustrating after going through The Road of Sacrifices and Irithyll the other day, two areas with relentless enemies.
I will say I was also irritated with the way poise worked in Dark Souls 3 along with how useless Greatswords were, but that hasn't stopped me from enjoying the game. I've heard they fixed those two issues with The Ringed City so I'm excited to be jumping in again and testing all the changes out. For me personally, Dark Souls 3 is also my most replayed game in the series just for the level design alone, I never get tired of it. This is my second playthrough in the last week or so (I restarted because I messed up my build by not getting Havel's ring) and despite me replaying the same areas within a matter of days, I don't enjoy it less or feel any more burnt out because of how well it's crafted.This would actually now be my fourth. For comparison I've played Dark Souls 1, 3 times and the second game once.
Don't get me wrong in my criticisms of the second game, it's one I enjoyed playing, its steel case sits next to my copy of the third game. It got me to revisit Dark Souls in its entirety, but the first game had me discover what I enjoy so much about the series, and while those things exist in spades in the third game, they're non existent in the second outside of a few cool interesting levels like the Iron Kingdom or whatever and Shulva, both of which I think are great and I'm dissapointed Dark Souls 3 didn't have any levels like them. But as a single player kinda guy that's invested in the lore and will only play a specific type of combat in all action games. Dark Souls 2 isn't for me.
I tried going through Dark Souls 3 with the same weapon! It literally was an awful experience, and you really nailed why I didn't enjoy the game.
Every step felt like a chore in comparison. Hell I feel bloodborne did a much better job of balancing player weapons with enemy aggression, so going from that to DS3 was a real shock.
Weapon balance in Dark Souls 3 was pretty bad, I'll agree. I don't really know how it is now since in both my current playthrough's I've only stuck to straight sword. But I can see why you'd dislike the game if you try to go through the whole game with your favorite weapon class and it's shit. I probably would've been in the same boat with Ultra greatswords had I not just said fuck it and picked up a straight sword.
