I love this game.

This game is easier than Bloodborne but it still made me cry. 10/10 Buy it.

The game is a mess in terms of optimization and thus unplayable for me (keeps crashing due to memory leakage/VMA usage): I can't even lit the first bonefire... Really disappointed by From Soft on this one, especially since I was a huge fan after playing Bloodborne for hours. I don't recommend that you buy it in its current state.

Wouldn't be ranting if I didn't want to play the game that much, and trust me I'd really want but just can't..

Not related that much to the game but I think many of us are growing really tired of seeing such unacceptable PC ports (Arkham Knight PC pre-ordrer here..). From now on I think I'll "try" the games I want to play on my PC before buying, congrats FS.

4/10

Pros:
-Final Dark Souls game
-New spells
-Mana (TP) system implimented
-Weapon Arts
-No more Soul Memory (YAY!!!!)
-Can switch between Covenants freely
-Versatile bosses
-Lots of areas to explore
Cons:
-Spells are generic
-Armor is irrelevant to gameplay
-Hackers
-Lack of versitility in multiplayer
-Stamina regenerates EXTREMELY fast
-Devs refuse to accept when things are failing

Summary:

The game itself isn't bad. There are plenty of things to do, as well as challenging enemies to face. If you're a Dark Souls veteran already, however, you'll breeze through this faster than Taco Bell can work through your system. The biggest downfall is how easy it is compared to the other games and how much artificial difficulty there is incorperated into it. What's worse, they randomly decided to remove poise from the game. That's right, a rat can now stagger you even if you're in Havel's Armor. They also decided to remove a few key aspects that made the Souls game... well, Souls games.

The Good:

Don't be fooled. This is the final Dark Souls. They end it on an amazing note and tie all of the stories together in a weird way that you'd expect from a Souls game. The progression leaves you feeling, much like the others, that you are trying to push back an inevitibility, slowing churning away at anciet dieties that have managed to survive in the hostile world for ages, only to end up shattered and broken, realizing that you're just another cog in the machines in the end. It really is good on that note, and if you've played the other Souls games, I do recommend giving it a shot or at least looking up lore to see how it ended.

They added new spells and condensed some. Hexes no longer exist, and instead are replaced with "dark" versions of Sorceries, Pyromancies, and Miracles. One spell in particular, Farron Flashsword, is essentially a straightsword in a spell form. These things let your Sorceror, Cleric, or Pyromancer utilize a myriad of new things to assist in their usage, which is nice.

There is now a mana system. Spells use this, as well as weapon arts. You're given two types of Estus to compensate for tihs, as well. So your healer that never really wanted to bring that many Estus Flasks can now alternate between Estus Flasks or Ashen Estus Flashs, restoring either Health or FP.

All weapons now have a secondary function when weilded two-handed. These take up FP, however, so using them as a mage isn't an increadibly smart thing to do. That said, they allow someone that doesn't use magic to utilize their FP without investing into anything.

They got rid of Soul Memory from Dark Souls 2. This is a huge thing and many people argue that the only reason Dark Souls 2 multiplayer was considered trash was because of Soul Memory. I don't know about you, but the ability to stay in an area and collect souls for purchases or just to assist people for a certain boss is what made the series so much more bearable to me.

You can now switch between covenants by equipping the covenant item to the deticated slot for covenant items. It's really that simple. If you were at a boss and no one was summoning you as a Warrior of Sunlight, you're free to equip another covenant icon and start to PvP right there. Less hastle and very covenient. They have props on this one.

The bosses are truely unique in this one. Each one can be sporadically different than the next. They all feel and fight very different and the climactic battles are truely picturesque. 10/10 for bosses. They did amazing.

There is a lot more surface ground in this one than the others. There are plenty of areas to explore and a lot to do in them, as well. They really added a lot in this compared to the others in their original release, so I can give them props on that.


The Bad:

The spells, although numerous, are extremely generic. You'll find yourself using similar, if not the exact same, spell over and over game through the game. Lesser spells are completely outclasses by their upgraded varients. Even worse, you'll find some spells are completely useless. I'll take about Miracles here, since that's what I use primarily in the Dark Souls series. They added a new spell, Lightning Stake, which is essentially a Greater Lightning Spear cast at your feet. The problem? Greater Lightning Spear can already be cast at your feet, and it will double proc the damage for that. Lightning Stake can barely hold up to it in terms of damage for the first hit, but you're essentially taking a spell, giving it a longer cast time, more FP use, and less damage, then trying to get players to use it because it has a slight (and I do mean noticably slight) increase in area of effect damage. Things like that make the new spells almost meaningless as you'll probably use the same 3 spells over and over again for either Sorceries, Miracles, or Pyromancies.

Armor has no point in this game. The damage reduction is extremely small, comparatively between armors, and there is no poise. Some people have gone back to calling it Fashion Souls, because the armor you wear is limited to light armor that you visually like. Take from it what you will, but I've always considered the brutality of the Souls world to demand realistic armor or you face realistic consequences for not taking it. That's not the case in this game and it's a shame.


There are hackers in this game, and they will get you banned. There have been numerous hacks developed and deployed, making the leaderboards meaningless and the possibility of your character being banned high in PvP at times. Things like arrows putting all of your stats at 1 or teleporting you to the Firelink Shrine with the Dragon Covenant headgear on were prevelant when I played last. These will get you banned and you will be annoyed if it happens to you.

People in PvP tend to use the same thing... over and over and over and over. PvP is extremely stale and, unlike the other Souls games, it GREATLY matters what you bring to the fight. Certain gear will destroy 95% of the other options out there, and there's not much the devs are going to do about that.

If you've played a Dark Souls game before, you'll notice that Dark Souls 1 to 2 got a stamina regen boost. It wasn't massive, but it was significant. Now Dark Souls 2 to 3 got another one. What's left is a boost to Stamina that doesn't punish poorly thought rolls or blocks. You can roll until you're out of range of someone then, by the time they get to you, your Stamina will be back up again. It promotes passive play and is extremely annoying. It also makes the game much, much easier than its predecessor.

Look at the game now. As you're looking at it, you're probably seeing only a couple thousand people playing it. This is only months from its release. This isn't good for the game. A lot of people like myself refuse to play the game until they add something meaningful to it. But, devs have stated several times that the game is running exactly how they want it to run, as a Bloodborne 2. The dynamic of the game is so drastically different than Dark Souls 1 it's almost insulting to call it a Dark Souls game. But the devs choose to believe what they want to believe, which will probably cause their games to fail in the end.

Final Thoughts:

I really don't recommend this game to anyone except people that want to see how Dark Souls will end. The story is good and the background is good, but the combat is easy and the enemies are redundant. It gets boring, fast, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.

extremely recommend buying if you have a friend or two willing to play with you... so much fun in PVP... IF you want to pvp.. but you have no choice in the matter.

one thing i must say is that i am a casual and if i played this by myself this would've gotten a negative review because of salt.

5/10 for single player
9/10 for co-op (would be 10/10 if not for unwanted invasions)

It's ok I gues

>Cancerous community of gankers
>Dev team breaks gank spank weapons, ♥♥♥♥ing over invaders greatly
>Brought back the giant seed, making the invader's only upperhand as an invader worthless
>You only win in pvp by out-cheesing your enemies, making the only wins you get feel undeserved
>If you try to use anything other than Meta approved weapons, you're in for a bad time
>The shifty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s at From make it so if you summon 4 phantoms, there is literally no downside to it
>They punish invaders for trying to use one of the game's best mechanics by making patches that hinder invaders and benefit gankers
>If you summon phantoms to fight an invader and your phantom dies, this is literally nothing stopping you from summoning more phantoms to replace the one that just died
>From broke poise and haven't made an effort on bringing it back, making heavy armor useless and made it fashion souls
>From made THREE ganking covenants! THREE!!! There's the way of the blue, which is a covenant that is used only to call for help to the TWO other ganking covenants when you get invaded by someone. It's like they want to get rid of invasions all together!
>PVE after newgame+ is a laugh, as you already went through the game enough to have all 10+ weaponry and can stunlock/instakill every enemy, and once in a while you get tired of slashing through all of your enemies and you want to try pvp, just to get ganked by a five man squad w/ darkswords and soulstream
>Every update seems like a bigger kick in the balls to the invading community
Overall, dont by this steaming pile of crap unless you want it for the lore, just go back to darksouls 2. at least there the pvp is actually good and its based more on skill, than what this garbage has to offer.
inb4 "LoL gIt GuD sCrUbLoRd." which is the only response you can ever get from this cancerous cesspool of a community.

It's more Dark Souls. It's a little easier than the previous ones and I felt like I'm getting a little tired of the formula.... nevertheless a solid game for those who want... well... more Dark Souls!

+Eerily atmospheric and detailed game world.
+Fluid attack and movement animations.
+One of the best line-up of boss battles in Souls' universe, who now have two phases.
+Retains From Software's signature style of lore-building
+Complex NPC side-quests.
+Haunting soundtrack.
+PC Version is fine with little, ignorable problems. (Like FPS drops while connecting/disconnecting controller...yeah)

-PvP and Covenant system is a step down from Dark Souls 2.
-Weak NG+ content.
-Some of the features have been streamlined , to make newcomers comfortable, which include but not limited to:

• Removal of AGILITY stat.
  
• Unable to upgrade armor.
  
• Forced levelling-up by visiting hub area
  
• POISE!!!! I don't know what is that. Does it exist? Not anymore.
  
• Ability to change covenants anytime, anywhere.
  
• You can now move while chugging Estus flasks. While it's neat design in Singleplayer, it's a nightmare to begin with in PvP.

- GREAT LEVEL DESIGN! SUPERB! TOP NOTCH! 9/11 While it definitely is better than the linear design of DS2, it's not anywhere close to Dark Souls 1. Somewhere inbetween those two games.

You cannot shake the feeling that this game was supposed to be a love-letter of sorts for Dark Souls fans. There is a lot of fanservice and referencing that will intrigue those who spent massive chunks on time on the first game.
Inspite of some notable changes, like addition of a focus bar, weapon arts and faster attack animations, this still feels like Souls game.
Inspite of somewhat dumbed difficulty and fluctuating brilliance of level designs, I had tons of fun with Dark Souls 3.
This is a MUST buy for any fan of the Souls' series or challenging RPGs in general. Definitely a formidable GOTY candidate this year.

What a great Souls game. It might not be perfect. DS1 can't be topped, we should know that by now.

Visually the game does really well. All of the effects look really good, textures don't seem muddy or blurry (even when your not maxing out the settings). It should be stated that the game is really well optimized for those with less powerful PC's. (An example of a poorly optimized game: The Evil Within).

A lot of people are saying that this is the easiest of the Souls games. I think I disagree. We, as members of the Dark Souls following, have played tons of hours in this still blooming genre of games. We have conditioned ourselves. We are just better at the games now. I would expect to see much more challenging areas in the forthcoming DLC. And if you need more of a challenge out of DS3, hop into any of the NG+'s. This mainly adds more challenge to the bosses (late game specifically). NG+'s can get really brutal.

If you are looking for a better Souls game than DS2... If you are looking for a little more of what DS1 had to offer... You have come to the right place. It might fall behind DS1 in a couple of ways, but it is right up there with it.

I think that the game will only get better with more updates for balance and such and DLC to add more challenge.