They’re challenging, engaging, animated with ferocity and elegance, and scored by a choral orchestra that further describes their themes and emotional backdrop. No matter the ease or lack of, every victory elicited a jump, a shout, shaking hands, each of those reflexes at once. Some took a few tries, others (a certain dancer comes to mind) took me closer to two hours.
Others are somber battles with pitiable opponents that made me wish I could sheathe my sword and show mercy. Some are towering monstrosities with multiple stages that change pace in an instant. Each demanded the attention of my deep arsenal, pattern recognition, and the level design in order to take out. This isn’t to say any of them are simple. One of my favorite changes, and likely a controversial one, is how Dark Souls 3 plays around with boss design to get those ideas across, throwing a few less challenging, but more thematically playful opponents into the mix. Bonfires and unlockable shortcuts typically showed up just before I ran out of healing items, and more importantly, willpower.ĭark Souls’ difficulty has always been in service of building on themes of desperation and despair, rather than being hard for the sake of ‘get gud’ video game egos worldwide. Well-paced level design kept frustration from death to a minimum. Alone, they’re already a challenge, but I rarely found any baddie without a buddy. The camera feels like less of a problem than in previous Dark Souls game, but since death comes so easily, its quirks are still frustrating.Įnemy design is more diverse than ever long-haired skeletal spider people sucked my face off, fire witches reduced me to ashes from a hundred yards off, and the icy quadrupedal Irithyll knights chopped me up into a big bowl of frosted flakes. About four times, a pillar or wall got stuck between my vision and my character.
If I died, it was usually because I rushed into the fray too soon or wasn’t properly outfitted-though the camera did get me killed a few times. But every swing and dodge roll is still an uninterruptable commitment, and shields haven’t lost their importance, so with enemies rushing from every side, quicker attacks are an exciting, necessary addition. Dark Souls 3 sets up even more chaotic arenas throughout and accommodates with attacks that execute much faster than prior Souls games, shifting the focus to improvisational crowd management. In this instance, I could light up a gunpowder barrel with my pyro’s fireball, skirt the edges of the arena to take out the smaller enemies, and then focus exclusively on the spellcaster. With a lot to deal with at once, and very early on, I noticed myself prioritizing enemies, studying the arena, and dipping into my deep arsenal more often than before. Instead of a few undead soldiers, I regularly ran into, for example, 10 armed undead villagers, a corpse dog or two, and a beefy spellcaster.
Because so many more enemies can appear on screen than in previous Dark Souls games, extremely cautious play is rewarded.
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