In true form, it's once again been over a month since the last time I wrote something on here. Part of me wants to get into the habit of writing more frequent, shorter posts, instead of monolithic monthly ones, but then I never get around to it. Doesn't help that most of what I've played in the last month has been games that I've played before. I still think Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight are great games, but I don't really have anything new to say about either of them (if you're wondering why I replayed them, it's because Batman v Superman got me in a Batman-ish mood a while back). I did also play Shadow of the Colossus for something like the fifth time, and maybe I could write something up about that. But not here, and not now, because now it's time for:
Aside written after the fact: For whatever reason, I ran into a lot of trouble writing this blog. Between often being at a loss for what to say, and various depression over my writing skills (or lack there of), I stopped and started over a bunch and the thing is kind of a mess. At one point I even started writing it in a completely different style, with a heavier focus on the story, and maybe I'll flesh that out and make it a spoiler heavy post some other time. Maybe if I New Game Plus it and get the other endings. Anyway, just bear with this blog, it's a little rough. <3
Dark Souls III (with some spoilers).
When I first started the game, it took me a few hours before it really clicked with me. I don't know if it's because I was coming to terms with how much "more Dark Souls" this game was (rather than something different), or if I just had to work the Bloodborne out of my system. It took a while before I fully adjusted out of the mindset where pressing the attack after getting hit could restore health, for example. I do think it would've been nice if that system had been brought over, but I get why it isn't, and in the end, the game doesn't really need it.
But once I did get back into the swing of things, I had an absolute blast. Which, maybe is surprising to some people, but if I was asked to sum up Dark Souls III in one word, it'd be, "fun." After making a bunch of these games, From Software has nailed down this style of combat. After Bloodborne I was wondering if going back to a shield wouldn't be fun any more, but thankfully I was wrong. Yes, I know you don't have to use a shield, and I usually tried to dodge attack instead of blocking, often successfully, but not always.
I guess that's a decent segue into the type of character I played. I started with a Pyromancer, but didn't put any more points into Intelligence or Faith after that (pyromancy scales with both). I did buy a sorcerer staff and the Soul Arrow spell, but that and the default Fireball were the only magics I ever used in the game. I might have stuck with the pyromancy a bit more if I had found a better fireball spell, or, for that matter, an NPC that I could learn pyromancy from (more on that later). Instead, I focused on Strength, health, stamina, and equip load, so I could wear heavier armor and still be in the medium rolling tier. I also put a handful of points into Dexterity so I could use a bow, for luring out enemies one at a time, and for cheesing certain enemies at range. I mean, why should I try to fight a wyvern when I can just stand right outside its fire range and chip away at it with arrows?
But for the most part I was shielding, dodging, and sword slashing. Rather than getting something cool, or unique, I ended up using a broadsword for almost the entire game. The only exception being when I needed to infuse a weapon with a specific damage type to keep the enemies dead, and I didn't want to do that to my favorite broadsword (though you can un-infuse weapons with the right type of stone).
Speaking of, the weapon upgrade system is about as straightforward as it's ever been in Dark Souls, though not quite as streamlined as Bloodborne. But, in Bloodborne the real weapon customization was with the weapon gems, which aren't in DSIII. Here each weapon has a linear upgrade path, most to +10, and at any point during that you can infuse the weapon to either do a specific type of damage (fire, lightning, frostbite (which is new, and a clever name for ice damage), etc), or to scale differently. I infused my broadsword with a "heavy gem" so it would scale better with Strength, but at the expense of Dexterity scaling. Okay, I guess there technically are gems, but these are one time use materials, rather than being removable and reusable like Bloodborne's. And there's no armor upgrading, which I'm fine with.
What is back from Bloodborne (and DSII, and Demon's Souls) is having to warp to a place (Firelink Shrine) and talk to a lady to level. There's also a blacksmith (Andre, returning yet again), a merchant, and perhaps other NPCs that you might meet along your journey. Honestly, having to warp back there to level is still a bit annoying, but faster load times than any of the previous games (at least comparing PS4 to other console versions) makes it less annoying. Speaking of, framerate wise this is also the smoothest From Software game I've played, aside from maybe 3D Dot Game Heroes. Though, apparently the most recent patch (1.04) makes the framerate worse, so who knows? At least that's what someone I know said on, anyway.
What is annoying (to me, anyway) is that you have to talk to Andre to allot the number of regular Estus Flasks (restores health) and Ashen Estus Flasks (new!), which restore the blue magic/skill meter. I didn't use that stuff very much. The pyromancy was pretty useful early on, especially since the range is a lot longer than it was in Dark Souls I, but with my melee focused build, it became less and less effective as I got deeper in. I didn't mess around with the skill stuff much, aside from one specific situation. You'd know what it is if you've seen it in the game, I won't say any more about it.
Anyway, the point, before I got sidetracked, was that having to warp back and run over to Andre didn't really seem to encourage experimenting with the numbers of each Flask. If I could change those allotments at any fire, I'd have been more willing to mess around with it, and try using those weapon skills more. Instead, by the end of the game, I had all regular Estus Flasks, because I was never in need of refilling the blue meter because I never got good at, or had interest in using those skills. For a lot of the game I kept at least one Ashen Flask, but more healing items just seemed more practical.
All that aside, I did kind of end up liking Firelink Shrine, at least more than I liked any of the areas you had to warp to for leveling in the other games. I still would have preferred being able to level at any bonfire, but I'll take what I can get. And having a place where NPCs would occasionally show up was cool. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls II did similar things with their places, but the load times in those games were long enough (at least in DSII, I don't really remember in Demon's, despite playing that one more recently) that I just wanted to go there, level, and then go back.
But back to what I mentioned about never finding an NPC that I could learn pyromancy from, which brings me to a broader...I wouldn't say issue, but something I experienced with this game. These games have never been completely straightforward with the NPCs, where you find them, what you can do with them, etc. Not only is this one no different, but I feel like it leans into you needing to be at specific places at specific times to interact with them even more than the previous games did. I don't mean to imply that this game is like Dead Rising, or something, where you could just stand still forever and miss an opportunity to talk with someone. After looking up this stuff after finishing the game, I learned that there's more than a few NPCs that move from a spot to another once you pass specific points in the game, and if you haven't done whatever it is that you needed to do for them, or with them, they either die, or just disappear.
There's nothing wrong with that, but it did result in me missing a lot of stuff. Multiple NPCs that I met once or twice, and never saw again, only to learn that they had an entire questline I could've helped them with. I would have loved to help Siegward (heir of the Onion Knight Mantle) or Anri (an odd NPC that changes gender/voice actor depending on the gender of your character) in their respective quests, but I was just unlucky enough not to find them more than once or twice. Maybe if I play the game in New Game Plus, I'll keep a guide handy on what to do, and when to do it. Might also do that to get one of the endings, which, the hoops you have to jump through to get are kind of absurd. Paragraphs and paragraphs of text on what to do, what not to do, and when to do it all. It makes finding the items you needed for Bloodborne's "secret" ending seem straightforward in comparison.
Siegward reminds me of another thing I want to, well, reference: References. For a series that conveys so much of its lore indirectly, this game has a lot of direct references to the previous Dark Souls games, and even some not so subtle nods to Demon's Souls and Bloodborne. However, given that Sony owns Demon's Souls and Bloodborne, and Dark Souls is Bandai Namco (though I don't know if BN owns the IP or if From does, but it's probably BN), I think those are just references, and not supposed to indicate that these are all in the same world, or universe.
But even knowing going in that this game was more "referential" than Dark Souls II, I was still a little surprised, at least at first. DSII felt like it went out of its way to not seem like it was overtly referencing the first game, while also maintaining a lot of the same themes, but was actually more closely connected than it initially seemed. It didn't necessarily work as well as perhaps the developers intended, but DSIII's approach of being more direct works better, I think. For the most part.
Some things, like the aforementioned Siegward, feel like they lean a little too far on the fan service side, rather than the, "this is important for the lore" side. Siegward is, of course, invoking Siegmeyer, from Dark Souls I. They both wear the same armor, and I think have the same voice actor. And if not, the one in DSIII is definitely trying to sound similar to Siegmeyer. Siegmeyer was, in some ways, the comic relief of Dark Souls. He was a bit blunder-y, and often needed your help to get out of a jam, but he was by no means incompetent, or stupid. And, from my one encounter with Siegward in DSIII, he felt like very much the same sort of character. But, after looking up where Siegward's story goes online (because after I helped him out that first time, I never saw him again), I am happy to say that it goes in a much different direction than Siegmeyer's. So that's good.
There was actually one moment in DSIII where I thought the developers had gotten incredibly self aware with one of the NPCs. That, or that something had broken. Unsurprisingly, Patches has an appearance in DSIII. He has been in all of these games, except DSII, after all. But when I first encountered him in DSIII, it was at Firelink Shrine, and curiously, he was apologizing. In the way that he always does after he does you wrong, and he asked if I would forgive him. But...I hadn't seen him yet in this game. Was he apologizing for what he'd done in the past games? Had Dark Souls finally become self aware? Sadly, that wasn't the case. After looking it up, I realized that I had simply missed where he would do me wrong, and I'd gotten deep enough into the game where he just showed up at Firelink. I guess they forgot to give him different dialog for that scenario.
All of that aside, I think that this game being more direct about its connections to the first game than Dark Souls II was is one of the things that makes this game better. Never mind that it has the best level design, encounter design, and general "feel" of the combat of the three games. Dark Souls III does things that only a sequel can do, and it does them really well. There are moments in this game where I just thought, "Oh, MAN," because of what was happening in relation to the first game.
Things like, SPOILERS, you go back to Anor Londo. And sure, not everything about that area is perfect (the handling of Gwyndolin in particular continues to be, well, not great, but I don't want to get sidetracked by that), but seeing that area name appear made my jaw drop. Like, I knew they were clearly invoking that before, but I didn't know if it was just a wink and a nod or if they were actually going for that.
Instances like that could very easily have been over done, but they tread that line very carefully. Just enough to flesh out the lore in some cool ways, but not so much that it just feels like endless fan service. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given that just about every other aspect of the game is done so well. I think Dark Souls III is a fantastic game, and it's definitely my favorite Dark Souls. I'd still say I like Bloodborne most of all, but this is a very close second. If you liked Dark Souls the first, I'd highly recommend this one.
I'm curious about what From Software does next. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Bloodborne II gets announced this year, but honestly, I'd rather they do something completely different than what they have been doing. From Software has a long history of making a lot of varied, and often bizarre games, and I'd love if they combined that weirdness and sense of humor from their older games with the incredible game design that they've shown they're capable of with these games. It doesn't matter if it's something totally different, or if they make a mech game that has the same "flow" and "structure" of these games, but has an identity of its own (like how Bloodborne did for Victorian stuff and cosmic horror).
Actually, I hope it's something very different. Something I noticed during DSIII was that I've now become so in tune with how they make these games that I can kind of predict what's going to happen before it does. Almost every time there was a shortcut, right before it I had a feeling that I would certainly like a shortcut, and that there should be one near. There's a lot of enemies that like to drop off of things and surprise you, and I always tried to make sure I looked up to spot them. Things like that, which were totally surprising and unexpected in the older games is kind of old hat by now. Not that it makes any of that stuff bad, or un-fun. Quite the contrary, as I've said. But I'd be really happy if they did something different. It doesn't have to be radically new and surprising, just different from this. But maybe that's even asking too much, I don't know.
On second thought, I just remembered how there were multiple times in Dark Souls III that I had no clue where to go to proceed, and I ended up doing some weird stuff to figure out how to keep going. In one case I relied on messages on blood stains from other players to open a path forward, even though I later realized I sort of "sequence broke" the game. By which I mean I got into an area before the game would have explicitly told me to go that way. And there was another case where I accidentally looked up where to go (long story), but that ended up being for the best because it would have taken a lot of wandering on my part to find that stuff without it. Possibly hours of just searching through areas I had already been through because I simply forgot to walk down a staircase near a Bonfire.
Aside from getting lost I didn't really have a ton of difficulty getting through the game. I certainly died often enough, but other than Demon's Souls (which I min/maxed for magic, which makes that game a joke), this was the easiest time I've had with one of these games. There were only two bosses that gave me trouble, and one of those was because it was a large boss and the camera kept getting stuck on it. That was the only time in the game that I felt frustrated, and it was because of the camera. And honestly, I'm in too deep at this point to say if it's because this game actually is easier or more forgiving, or if it's because I've spent so much time playing the others that I've just gotten good at them. I think it's a little of the first, and a lot of the second.
I'm also curious about the future of Dark Souls as a franchise. They've said this is the end of the trilogy, but I doubt that means we'll never see another game with the Dark Souls name. I just wonder if that means we'll have to wait quite a few years for a reboot and return from From, or if Bandai Namco might have another developer make a Dark Souls IV. That wouldn't surprise me in the least, but I have doubts about how well that game would turn out. Dark Souls without From Software (or mastermind Hidetaka Miyazaki, for that matter) just wouldn't be Dark Souls. Or maybe it'd be fine, who knows! Miyazaki didn't work on Dark Souls II, and that game was still pretty good. But it was also still From, and there's plenty of very talented people there anyway.
But I'm rambling now, so time to move on. Actually, instead of the usual format, I'll stick to just Dark Souls III for this blog. Some time later this week, or next, I'll write something up about Zombi and the Mirror's Edge Catalyst Beta, and you can read about that then if you want! I'm going to close this out with some a bunch of the better Miifotos I've taken in Miitomo. Miitomo isn't really a game, and I don't have much to say about it other than it sure is datamine-y and microtransaction-y. But it's also goofy and charming and I can make all my answers about destroying the corporate police state and engaging in pagan rituals to summon Satan, so it's fun.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a swell day! <3
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