They definitely overcorrected when they nerfed magic in this game. I've tried so many times to get a mage build off the ground in DS3 and they've all ended in failure. It just takes so long before you're able to get all the stuff you need. Like, DS3 mages will be level 90, about to fight the Soul of Cinder, and be like "Ah, my build is finally starting to come together." I did see some success as a pyromancer using Carthus Flame Arc to buff my sword, but then I realized that's just a melee build with extra steps
Literally just be a full fledged Pyromancer wtf lol my witch has 2 gloves and all my dps comes from those, I just think you're stuck in the beta male melee grindset
I never realized people hated this game. I loved it. Some of the most fun I had. It's got the nostalgia with its own tasteful spin and great quality of life editions.
I’ve found it has as much replay ability as DS1 too. I get the same satisfaction of building up my character in both games- that classic RPG feeling, but in a purely unique souls way.
I actually really enjoyed the DLC ending with Gael. You, and him, are the only remaining lives in the world. He's an undead just like you, and he's been fighting for a very long time, through many difficult battles, just like you. He's finally reached his goal, and it turns out he can't even use the blood he required. Dark souls 3 may be gray and drab, but I like to imagine that's somewhat the point. Dark souls 3 is symbolizing the end. Not just the end of the story, the end of the world. Everything is dying, the world is a shattered husk of what it used to be. Even aldrich, who looks like dark sun gwyndolin, is meant to be a monster who devoured so many others that he lost his human form completely. Even soul of cinder is depressing. SOC isn't Gwyn, but a culmination of everyone who's ever linked the fire, and killing him means the end, I would imagine. The story is depressing and drab, but Dark Souls reminded me that a good story doesn't have to end in a bang, or even a whisper. It could end like DS3. Dark, cold, and quiet. PS: I also wanted to mention that the linear nature of the world makes sense to me. You're being told where to go. In DS1, you kind of explore and figure things out yourself, but your task is to link the flame, and there is no grand adventure. You decide to end the age of fire (in the ending I like to think is canon) and realize that no matter what happens, you don't matter. You aren't the hero, and once you fulfill your task, you'll be forgotten about. There are many bosses who were also forgotten about. Nameless King, abandoned and shunned, Yhorm, isolated and alone, Abyss Watchers, disbanded and slaughtering each other mindlessly, High Lord Wolnir, hanging on to his last thread of humanity, avoiding the abyss directly behind him in his boss room, Darkeater Midir, fighting endlessly, yet all in vain, SLAVE KNIGHT GAEL, the last remnant of humanity, and finally, Iudex Gundyr. The first boss you fight, and the one that has the most tragic fate in the game. He made it to firelink shrine, but the firekeeper was dead, and the flame had faded. If his duty being failed wasn't enough, he was struck down by an unknown warrior, and made a sheath for the coiled sword. You know, the sword that lets you start the game. His only remaining task is to be killed, over, and over, to test the mettle of undead like you. He has no grand death, or a symbolizing story. Just someone who failed in everything except dying.
Something I feel doesn't get praised enough about DS3 is the absolute god-tier music. Every track is phenomenal, but Pontiff, Yhorm, Soul of Cinder, and frankly, all of the DLC music is hall of fame material.
Dog, I could not agree more. Slave Knight Gaels theme at the end around 8:20, is SPINE chilling, with that beautiful violin refrain from the very beginning, tying the whole damn series together, can summon emotions within me I didn't know I had. Forget hall of fame, try God of Music award.
I think that something that's worth mentioning is that at the time of release the phrase that kept floating around a lot was "series fatigue". There was a lot of hype surrounding the launch of the game, but some longtime fans were kind of disappointed that the game didn't reignite their passion for the series after DS2 in some big way. That feeling was compounded by the mountain of references to past games, the bleak setting and the endings which were all pretty depressing (they are good and go very well with the setting, but they don't make you feel triumphant, so some felt tired of the game by the end). However, over time this feeling faded for those who picked up the game again, plus all of the new fans who loved it. Hell, most of them started with DS3. I think it's quite common to find this game at the top of many people's lists nowadays, for good reasons.
Maybe series fatigue is a good way of describing part of my feelings. I just felt really uninspired playing it (picked it up about 6 months after release). I attributed that to the R1 spamalam and not feeling challenged, but maybe it had more go do with my expectations Vs what we ended up getting. This is the first comment I've seen that has made me want to give it a go again. For the record, I played through it once, farted around with PvP for a week or so and then dropped it.
This is my experience, I played every souls game in reverse starting with Bloodborne, then DS3, DS2, etc. Because of that, Dark Souls 3 is my favourite souls game, and in comparison I think Dark Souls 1 is the worst game just in general. Didn't enjoy really any part of that game for whatever reason. Probably has to do with it being an older game
One thing you missed was level variety. I think most of the areas were really well designed from a mechanical perspective, but there are too many cathedral/church-like areas, and Dark Souls 2, while it had nonsense interconnectivity, did have more interesting and varied areas to go. With all that being said, Dark Souls 3 is still an excellent game, its perfectly fine to love a piece of media, warts and all.
@@flash1face1 fair enough but quick question isn't the adaptability in ds2 a real kick in the nuts for builds as the increase in invincibility frames in the roll way too good too not level it up in the begining?
@@thekingisdead6411 at least 3 doesn't have areas designed to be on their own and then "connected" together because higher ups said "Gottabe like DS1" tho
Playing through Dark souls 3 for the first time right now. While the overall map is quite linear in terms of backtracking to old areas, the game itself does constantly present you with multiple options and fills you with the desire to explore. Take the Undead settlement as an example. You can sprint right through, kill the ice sword boy and speedrun the area, or you can take the time to talk with the giant, fight the fire demon and explore that mansion, join the mound-makers, take on a big tree and numerous other activities. In addition, every other area splits into two branching paths. Giving you options of where to go next.
There's a lot of cool set pieces in the levels too. taking your Undead Settlement example, all the hollows around the burning pile of bodies until you show up, then later with the giant practicing his javelin throws for the Age of Fire Olympics
@@wilfredwayne7139 I wouldn’t say that. You could always just open up the late game areas before fighting the game’s “first” boss by fighting Dancer early if you have the chops for it. Dancer definitely serves as a wall to keep you out, but it’s still an option.
I think one of the best qualities DS3 has over the others is that it feels like a strong, complete, and fun game from start to finish. There are not really any places where I thought that it looked/felt rushed while being backed up by easily the best boss fights in the series. When comparing it to DS1 (which I do love and have played several times), DS1 has a lot of lackluster boss fights (capra, Bed of Chaos, pinwheel, the triple asylum demons, etc.) and a TERRIBLE second half with locations like lost izalith, the catacombs, and that big ugly yard in the dukes archives followed by invisible catwalks. Although DS3 has its own flaws, I can look past them since its just such a strong title.
Tbh the only part i felt rushed and didnt like was lothric castle, the grand archives, armour dragonslayer, dragon barracks and the princes upper arena are waaay to close to each other only to be linked together by 5 or so elevators/shortcuts while being 20 steps away from each other, i know its a castle but come on, so lame i was at least expectig some creative interconnection that far into the game, in DS1 there were some elevators too but really nice placed all over the map.
I feel like it's so grounded it feels uninspired, like it's a really solid game, nearly flawless, but it also feels like it lacks so much ambition and didn't try to innovate in any meaningful way
Triple Asylum demon exists because some players won't encounter stray demon, I would say the game gets better as it goes along because early bosses like crystal sage, deacons of the deep, rotten great wood, high lord wolnir. I feel like almost every area was designed to be ran through, and even if that is the case so many bosses can be accessed without even doing their level. The design has always fell flat for me, especially because of the lack of interconnectivity
DS 1 has one the best interconnected worlds in gaming history. DS 2 has impressive build variety, which I suppose makes for an interesting PvP meta (don't really much care about DS PvP personally, but it is a plus). DS 3 has the most fun and spectacular PvE battles, especially bosses. I mean...Gael. Overall winner: Bloodborne
yeah Bloodborne is something else , but what I don't like about Bloodborne is , when I'm playing dark souls 3 , I believe in my self , this guy is nothing or , fuck that guy , it ez but in Bloodborne I'm always scared for what happens next , I'm always scared of fighting , in demon souls and dark souls I feel safe but not in Bloodborne
I really do agree about the map section. Dark souls 1's map with how so many levels connected back to each other was IMO one of the biggest highlights of the game and Im sad none of the games continued it
ywah, it made the game feel open world even though it was somewhat linear. great fucking map design kudos honestly, cant blame the sequals for not living up to that giant task either, they are both by all means great map design imo, just got spoiled with ds1
The progression from area to area is pretty linear in DS3 but I also feel like there is enough to explore in the levels themselves. Exploration is usually rewarded pretty well in this game, when replaying the game I found so many things I missed on my first playthrough. I also thought the 'secret' areas were really cool, like dark Firelink Shrine and Archdragon Peak.
The most disappointing part of 3 for me was definitely the magic system. Magic (and arcane ig) in recent souls has always felt like a missed opportunity, and the weakness of it in 3 was just a kick in the nuts.
I mean it always has been shit in one way or the other(as in the first few games it was too strong, and in the later ones it was too weak) It also never felt like the games where even designed around magic
One of the main problems is that, while the FP bar is in theory a nice idea, they kept Attunement and the mechanic to slot and swap spells on the go, the EXACT same, so neither purpose of it (have a more plentiful and diverse amount of spells at once) is actually true. In fact, even worse because ATT doesn't add extra charges/Spell like it used to in 2... Meaning that unless you're sacrificing health recovery for mana recovery that also requires an animation+swap cost: all for the sake of spells that are spread out extremely arbitrarily (Dancer skip or do the entire early game with the starting two spells lmoa), and *of course* extremely gear/stat demanding if you could get over everything else
To me, the linear nature of DS3 used to be a bit disappointing. But honestly, looking back at it, how it’s the last game in the series. It almost feels like the march to the end of the series, where you aren’t exploring anymore, you’re on your quest to link the fire, there’s no question anymore, the firekeeper is there telling you directly, no mysticism or anything. It’s kinda sad? You have barely any choice, no matter where you go, you’ll always end up in the same place. But then you choose your “end” to the series. In retrospect, I appreciate it in a weird way. DS3 will always be my favourite DS, for both PvE & PvP I feel
I never understood why people harped on the linearity, to be honest, how many people really used the non-linear formula of the first two games rather than following the standard intended path?
@@archbishopofthecrusades9579 majority of the DS3 haters come from DS2 fans, they're butthurt that their favorite game sucks so instead of accepting the criticism, they rather shit on DS3.
@@archbishopofthecrusades9579 I feel like some people think about the fact that it’s there. from a pure gameplay aspect standpoint, 1 & 2 have more non-linear options than 3, sure. But I don’t think that considers the full picture at all
This world is begging for you to end it's suffering caused by the endless cycles of the flame. It's a march to end things once and for all (for the series and the game's world), not to bring them to the beginning again.
The combat is probably my favourite part of DS3 tbh. It's so smooth and snappy, just like Bloodborne. I'll give DS1 the better story and world design, but the combat in 3 just cannot be beat for me.
the reason I think a lot of people dislike DS3 is that DS2 did a lot of experimenting and so in my opinion they did not get all the experience they learned in DS2 so DS3 suffered and felt disappointing in some aspects if you loved DS2.
Pontiff Sulyvahn is my favorite boss in the entire souls series. He kicked my ass 20+ times over the course of several hours, but I never got angry when I died because any of his attacks felt unfair, I only got angry because I KNEW that I had played like shit and didn't dodge the attack correctly. In my eyes he is the epitome of what a very challenging, but completely fair boss fight should be like. Not to mention that he has one of the absolute best boss OST's in the entire souls series.
Pontiff has one kind of bullshit move in phase one where he does a quick stab with the purple dagger. It doesn't do a lot of damage but it's kind of like Gwyn's quick slash from DS1 in that it's a guaranteed hit unless you were already dodging or out of range. That attack really only becomes a problem with super low health or at sl1 though.
Interestingly Pontiff was actually supposed to be the final boss at one point. Also Pontiff's lore is really cool (I hope I have this right) - The world you play most of DS3 in is an illusion, created by Pontiff. The real state of the world is what you see in the Kiln of the First Flame and Dreg Heap, where the world became warped to all hell thanks to the age of fire being prolonged unnaturally for so many millennia.
When I went on my Souls binge and got to Soul of Cinder, my face lit up when I heard Gwyn's theme but then realised after that, that would be the last time I'd ever hear it in the series. Because of that, DS3 will always have a special place in my heart along with all of the other games. I always thought this was the community's favourite of the trilogy but I was surprised by this video and found myself agreeing with the criticisms. Is it my favourite game? No. But is it a damn good one? Without a shadow of a doubt, yes.
I'm genuinely happy that a lot of fans loved that moment. I started with DS2, so a lot of the DS1 callbacks didn't do much for me. That moment had its impact lessened for me because I had spent a lot of time in between DS2 and the release of 3 watching lore vids and such, and almost every one had that song playing in the background. It got remixed, ran into the ground, and everything else to the point I compared it to the Wily Stage 1 theme in MM2. That said, I wouldn't have chosen any other theme to end the true final boss with, so I'm glad the fanbase as a whole got something positive from it.
@@TX_LoveGame I agree with you, it could be interpreted that the comeback of Gwyn's theme symbolises the similarity and cyclical structure of the Dark Souls world due to it returning from the first Age of Fire and then to the last.
i appreciate references from old games and the soul of cinder fight was kinda cool, but two things. for one, the references are so many that they dont even feel special. secondly, dark souls 3 is only good if you can appreciate the references. i played dark souls 3 first.
Not saying much there, most if not all the "Demon" bosses in Dark Souls 1 were mediocre or bad. ODK on the whole is just an OK fight, but the one aspect of it I thought was done well compared to most other multi-phase bosses is it feels like something firing up the last remnants of its power before it extinguishes and becomes a husk. Only other boss I can think of like this in the series is Sif maybe. The very end of the fight, when its HP is at its end, after it's attempted to glow up and rain fire on you, lets it all go in one big explosion as a last-ditch effort to end you. Then it's just a big hunk of rock that can barely even move anymore. Then you just finish it off.
I actually liked the boss; my main gripe was his area. Who out of even the most ardent DS1 fans was clamoring for the return of Demon Ruins? One of the most bland and uninspired areas in the game imo.
I appreciate this game a lot more after Elden Ring. I found it a little too easy the first time, but I appreciate the combat flow a lot more compared to some of Elden Ring's bosses.
I honestly really really love DS3, it's my favorite game in the series and yes these bosses bussin (especially those dlc ones) Edit: Now that I think about it my favorite would probably be Demon's Souls but I still stand by what I said
DS1's PvP was a complex meta of jank. DS2 had weird hitboxes and only slightly better netcode than DS1, but that ultimately meant that reactively poking from distance wasn't as reliable. DS3's lack of jank and reliable hitboxes means the best playstyle is to spam quick R1's from your max range, and nothing really counters that particularly well.
I think Dark Souls 3 is my favourite of the bunch, I love the other two and honestly, its so hard to chose between the three. I used to think DS2 was my least favourite by far but played through that again recently and actually realised that just isn't the case. They all have the ups and downs, mainly all ups though. DS1 map design and just the progression style and different routes you can take will always be fantastic, but it is clunky. Nothing worse than dying to something that seems to be complete bull such as a camera fuck up or weird roll or jank hitboxes, DS3 is just a much smoother experience with less of that frustration. Also atmosphere and story wise, DS3 has a much stronger place in my mind. The ringed city DLC and the way they bring the game to a close with the slave knight gale fight at the end of time, man, nothing will beat that.
The DLC ends with two nameless nobodies fighting over nothing at the end of time itself. It's a surprisingly poetic ending, and it really encapsulates the feeling of the game, doesn't it?
to me, dark souls 3 was the best to just _play._ its controls are the most fluid and responsive so the act of just holding the controller and pressing buttons to make my dude do things was the least frustrating. and the linear nature of the world meant it was uncomplicated and less stressful to play through, and thus has been the one i played the most
Bro what the non linearity of ds1 never confused me or was to complicated... planning my routes and mapping the world out was one of my favorite experiences in gaming. And on later playthroughs it only improved the replayability since now that i knew the world there were tricks allowing me to do things how i wanted and even get some thinga early.
@@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa87252 yo comment but yes idrk how he gets confused. The game is honestly kind of linear. Like there are some areas that you COULD got to, but the game does a good job of telling you where you aren't supposed to be
Dark Souls 3 was one of the weirdest first-time playthroughs I've had. I found the claymore, got lucky rolling through the fire, I got beefed by the "tree of eggs" too many times, found the exile greatsword, and got lost in the woods for too long before getting gangbanged by the wolfs. Killed them finally, spent a lot of time at the cathedral, and went back to the old lady in the chair, somehow killed her exotic dancer first try, ignored the library full of candle-nerds, and cheesed the dnd team waiting for me on the rooftop. Lorian was tough at first, then it felt easier over time. And I was really happy that I kept dying to the last boss even though he seemed relativity easy because it made it feel right, and I became the coolest candle. After I beat the bosses offline, and played the whole game, I tried the dlcs on the same account in ng+ and they were satisfyingly unique and interesting. I wish I had played with someone watching though because I then also first tried the "no-name boi" and I will forever only hear "So do it again right now then" Thank you, Dark Souls 3
@@TheAlex010 Its not even like a gang bang is a bad thing lmao. Its not like he said gang rape. But sure, keep policing what people can and can't say on the internet like a moron
Your favorite games aren't the ones with the fewest flaws, they're the ones with the highest highs, and DS3 really delivers on that front to me and that's why I love it the most out of the trilogy. And really, what is love if not acknowledging flaws and saying "I don't care"?
I honestly have to say that ds3 just never "clicked" the same way ds1 has for me. I can obviously tell that its an amazing game, i think i just prefer the slow and steady feeling of dark souls 1
Also the map. The map of DS1 is superior to DS3 in almost every way. Compare the Undead Settlements to each other and tell me which is superior. DS3 Anor Londo/Irithyll is a joke compared to DS1s.
@@TheStraightestWhitest Trash taste, but not surprising coming from a DS3 enjoyer. You people are the casuls that are overjoyed elden ring doesn't let single players get invaded anymore, huh?
@@ahmadtheIED Well, DS1 does have the best map by far of all souls games. Edit: okay, i just remembered some parts of the second half of the game, still, i think my point stands because of interconectivate alone
@@ahmadtheIED Good thing DS3 isn't trying to design its map like DS1. You are acting like it is trying to be open and failing rather than trying to be linear and succeeding.
I thought Ashes of Ariendal (Don't know if I spelled that right) was a bit too short for my taste, but the boss fight at the end made up for it. Ringed City was amazing through and through.
The fight with Gael is probably my favorite fight in the series and how smooth the rolls were really nice, but Dark Souls 1 has something special about it that makes me want to replay it more. probably because the game is a lot slower and I appreciate that more.
"Gimmick bosses" I think the series could actually do MORE of these. Every boss doesn't need to be simply a test of your reflexes. Having to figure out a little puzzle of sorts is compelling too. I think it's just a matter of making sure these moments aren't as obvious as they often are.
I mean I don't mind "gimmick" bosses, but the gimmick should be fun, like Wolnir it amounts to hit the shiny bracelets and do a lot of damage, Yhorm it's use the weapon _in his boss room_ and kill him for free, etc. A puzzle fight should be hard to execute or actually a brain scratcher, all Dark Souls puzzle bosses basically amount to find a weapon in the boss room, or hit the very clear weak point sadly. Zelda it is not. The gimmicks kinda just make the bosses too easy rather than challenging a different skill.
You know, a week ago, I would have agreed with your sentiment, but I've beaten Nocturne now, and had a taste of what "more gimmick bosses" can do to someone's mental sanity. It's not nice.
@@HersgoryJigurda I never played DeS, I think the only "gimmick bosses" I can think of, is the one that's like Yhorm in that you need to get the cloud ruler, then use that to kill them, but it looked more interesting than Yhorm at least. The other one was the dragon emperor? I think that's what its called, that falcon punches you if you beat the first boss you encounter at the start pre-Nexus. Neither one seemed too bad. The queen of the Souls gimmick fights, the reason why I will always say that Fromsoft cannot do puzzle/gimmick fights.. is Bed of Chaos though lmfao
I always love videos that essentially boil down to that simple phrase you used at the end: "(Insert game of choice here) absolutely shines because of its outstanding qualities in the areas I care about. Sure, the (insert bad quality here) sucks, and the (insert second bad quality here) kinda sucks. And I don't care. I still love it" The long and short of this video is that you should spend your time doing things you enjoy. Not everyone values the same things, so not everyone will fall in love with the same things. And that's ok.
I agree heavily with the build part. Magic, miracle, dark and pyromancy builds have lots of downfalls. The dmg is restricted so that it doesn't surpass melee. The cast time means less dmg over time and fewer hits. Combined with FP resource management and allotted ashen estus. Melee will always be superior, so much so that it is vital to every build. Pure caster builds suffer greatly and bosses take less dmg to certain spells/elements. Most spells require high stats and the dmg is often times disappointing, making only certain spells the 'go-to' for players. While the rest are ignored and laughable by the community such as the 'Way of White Corona' which is a miracle aquired in the Ashes of Ariandel DLC, in a room with two corvian knights. Even a pure faith build will only get slightly over 120 damage if maybe. It's sad to see those numbers, there's no point in wasting a slot for them.
Honestly though pyromancy is the only exception to this and its only downfall is the large amounts of enemies with fire resistance but then you've got dark flames and stuff to counter act those ( don't quote me on that tho I haven't played in a while )
@@blake-peace - Oh my bad, you're right, I fixed it now. I like Lighting Arrow for PvP since you can hold it and cause players to panic roll. For PvE not so much.
@@garbageguy2599 - I found that enemies especially at the beginning of the game are weak to fire. For dark spells, most enemies I found have decent resistance towards dark. So I get moderate damage out of dark spells with rings equipped.
I found DS3's biggest issue was that I felt like it was trying to keep pace with bloodborne like it tried to be faster but then punishes that speed cause its darksouls and some bosses like the soul of cinder and nameless king and bootleg Maria just infuriate me with badly handled phases and often bullshit attacks that said it is still a great game
I dont really get what annoyes you about those fights, every attack can be consistantly avoided and punished, with maybe the exeption of friede, but even she can be hit after all her moves if you dodge early enough I think. I dont really get what you dont get about nameless king, all of his attacks are very slow
@@gottdashochstewesen4902 What I hate about nameless king is the storm king same for SOC and his phases, 1 boss who gets more then 1 hp bar annoys the hell out of me especially as in all situations they change how you fight them so you gotta get through often boring and sloggy first phases to reach the acctualy chanlanging phase and it fucks with muscle memory and over all just wastes time same goes for bootleg Maria boring first phase annoying second phase fun 3rd phase but ruined by the slog before it because of maria ive never been able to do Gael or Midir (and i know you can skip to the dreg heap but ive got a personal rule about doing story important bosses in order)
@@jebush1733 its not the speed its the boring and sloggy first phases storm king is such a boring fight and soc first phase is just annoying same goses for bootleg Maria boring first phase annoying second phase fun third phase but its ruined by the first two
Honestly, the big issue for me is that builds thing. Thank goodness we have mods to re-vamp magic, because it hurt how bad magic builds felt in DS3 when I tried them out. Otherwise, its probably my favourite game, of all time.
Magic was too unbalanced in DS1. It was literally the easy mode of Dark Souls for a reason. DS3 might have gone too far, but Magic needed to be nerfed when compared to what it was in DS1.
@@salamanda550 God damn, magic builds were even stronger in DS1? I haven't got around to trying it out on DS1 but I tried one out on DS3 and found the game considerably easier than using melee, DS1 magic must be insanely stronk Edit: I do agree that it could have had better variety, spamming HSA and HGSA for a majority of the playthrough did get a little tedious
I love the point of how the basic combat can actually be intriguing. That’s honestly some of my favorite combat in the game and it’s glad to see someone else enjoys the simplicity. Maybe we just wanna grill for God’s sake? 🤷♂️
If this makes sense, it felt like the rings in dark souls 3 were designed to supplement mediocre stats rather than augment okay stats, which is frustrating.
My feeling is more that rings are mostly there to slightly exacerbate already high stats... Most of them are % based. The most fun rings are the stat rings (which also tend to be the twink rings) because it lets you change your build by quickly hitting min stats to do something.
Dark Souls 3 was my first souls experience and I love it dearly. I realize its flaws but I don’t have a problem with the fact that it is more linear or that it borrows a ton from the previous titles. It introduced me this great series and I can go back and enjoy it any time.
Really? Whenever I return to DS3 it's like an abusive relationship. I'm mostly miserable, and I just try to grind out the stupid character idea I had and get it over with. DS1 and 2 are always fresh to return to because I can actually mix up my build and play-through. DS1 also just has the best story and environments, and DS2 is pretty silly but also really varied!
@@SergeantChewie Then you don't get to do more fun or unique stuff! You could at least understand why I might want to plan out a build capable of a unique playstyle to make the play through more interesting? My most recent idea, for instance, was primarily focusing on Ashen Estus with a Faith build, since miracle healing is more flask efficient than normal estus and an interesting way to complete the game. I'd want to make sure I had a plan to get and use weapons and pick a starting class that enable that style.
Monsieur Dorgat I 100% agree no worries. I enjoy watching people make their builds and it can certainly be discouraging when you’re looking for a perfect weapon that’s fun and fits your build but it doesn’t exist or is too late game. Your ashen estus flask idea is really cool, I’d honestly consider doing it myself. When I play I usually build it as I go because if I plan too much I never find what I’m looking for.
@@SergeantChewie The ashen estus thing is basically just any miracle/pyromancy build - you have like two normal estus for emergencies but otherwise use Ashen and miracles to heal if you finish a battle without health. I think I approach open world RPG's a little more like you approach Dark Souls, where I expect and want to be surprised by the variety. Dark Souls games are small and linear enough I don't expect those kinds of surprises for natural RP, so I stick to planning unique builds instead.
I feel as though each game each have their own specific preferences and ideas that clearly separate them for a player and which they feel like playing. There’s also a very amazing video that talks about DS3 called “DS3 is thinking of ending things” and it goes over how the references are used as a story beat even more than you may realize and how it affects the overall story of the game I’d recommend you watch it if you haven’t cause it can give you a whole new idea on why these references are so much more than simple nostalgia
I will once again recommend the video essay “Dark Souls 3 is Thinking of Ending Things” as I did in the initial community post. It made me appreciate Dark Souls 3’s story and tone even more than I already did.
I think being on the rails in DS3 might be why people love it as well. The story progresses in a very natural format. You arent having to seek it to find out wtf is going on. The game takes you through the progression. Even not playing DS1 you would feel like the game tells you the most of it. There are easter eggs for the loyalists, and nods to the past, but that isnt a bad thing. Continuity is nice.
I just thought of something. You can explain the fast travel in 3 with a bit of the lore. The Ashen Ones' are the ash of those who were elected to link the flame before. So it's possible that the Lord vessels ability passes along as well. And it's also ambiguous whether each Ashen One is composed of a single individual's ash or a composite of many cremations, mirroring the soul of cinder.
I loved all the call backs to ds1 because it reminded me of when my friends would play online with me, where by the time I played ds3 everyone is too busy with their own schedules to actually do any of that together or we fell out of touch over time and it made it feel lonely but really helped me immerse in the world. I played ds3 for the fashion souls part as well which was nice. I was sad I couldn’t do a mage build or faith, ended up with quality build. Never done a faith build and enjoyed a glass cannon run in ds1. My favorite part of this video was your point at the end of like just enjoy what you do in your free time. Like you said there is no real objective stance it’s all subjective and I really liked hearing what you liked and didn’t like so I could compare it with my own and feel like I’m having a conversation with an old buddy about dark souls. Thanks Lenny! Looking forward to whatever you do next
In DS1 gaining the ability to warp gave me a feeling of accomplishment, which was especially true on my first play of the game way back when, after clawing my way all the way through to O&S. It actually annoys me that others don't like DS1 purely because you can't warp from the get-go.
@@noop9k I like the way DS1 and DS3 handle it. DS1 is much more open ended so it gives you a chance to explore and appreciate the world when you don't have warps right away, but no warps in DS3 would just be repetitive because of how linear it is.
@@ThrowAway_462 ds3 wasn’t built for world exploration in mind, for sure. Can’t say it was entirely intentional either I think FromSoft was running out of time (they wanted to implement interconnectivity in between many zones, I think they tried with Irithyll and Carthus Catacombs)
Literally no one I’ve seen hates this game unless they’re being “the old school ones are better” type people but other than that actual fans love this game.
it's probably my least favourite only because of it's very weak start. The first half of the game is very dull aside from abyss watchers. It's similar to Dark souls 2 where it picks up hugely in the endgame, but at least in Ds2 you have some options at the start. Ds3 is just too linear, too safe. Edit: I do appreciate how it capped off the series tho and the DLC is a 10/10.
@@incius8341 Really? I loved high wall of lothric, it's the undead burg of DS3 but more action packed and more visually interesting, I think it's a great starting area with enough side paths but not too long, the boss is also decent, it's an actual fight you gotta fight and dodge, unlike the Taurus demon, who's basically gonna be impossible for new players because you can't go around him, the boss "area" is thin bridge and you can only dodge backwards, and once you get cornered it's over, but once you realize that you can kill him with 1.5 plunging attacks by climbing the ladder the boss becomes piss easy. The next 2 areas are a bit weak, but Cathedral of the deep is criminally underrated, it's one of the best designed areas in the entire game, solely because you use 1 bonfire for most of it while unlocking shortcuts after shortcuts, I think there are 3 in total, the cathedral itself is visually impressive and so large to the point that it gives you a megalophobia, the boss is lame though.
@@user-ly2ll5od1r I agree with you about the cathedral it's my favourite area in the base game, I only wish other areas were similarly inspired. Anyway, I stick by what I said. The fact you had 3x more to say about Taurus demon than Vordt is what I meant. Iudex gundyr is better than half the bosses after it. Also, highwall ain't bad, fromsoft is fromsoft after all but it is no undead burg. UB was physically connected to firelink, darkroot basin, undead parish and lower undead burg. Highwall connects to an endgame area that deadends until you kill yhorm and aldritch and couldn't be bothered to do more than warp between it's previous and next location. Which is funny to criticize cause it actually has more options than the rest of the game.
@@incius8341 Oh yes, the level design in DS1 is way better, more interconnected and probably peak dark souls, honestly - peak fromsoft the moment where you kick down the ladder or go down the elevator to firelink shrine are unironically one the coolest moments I've experienced in gaming, the fact that these moments can compare to the reveal of Anor Londo really says something about the importance of level design and how much it can add to the overall game, I'm lucky that I experienced this fresh without getting spoiled, I played up the gargoyles on xbox360 when it just came out, I was a stupid child who didn't know what I was getting into amd I still loved it, I just couldn't push through the challange of beating the gargoyles, especially with that boss run; I just gave up, I tried a few times to play it later but just couldn't get into it, i lost peatience and started using cheats, after beating the gaping dragon i just dropped the game writting it off as "not for me" also I felt guilty for playing unfair with cheats, and I only did finish it 6-7 years later on pc with the remaster, it's still my favourite fromsoft game and playing it around christmas time pretty much imprinted the whole experience into my brain to the point where I now have a tradition to replay DS1 around christmas time every year. I loved DS1, I was so confused as to why I only started loving it at the 4/5th attempt, so logically I immediatelly hopped on DS2 and I had a miserable time, I'm not gonna go into detail as to why since many people have explained in better detail why, maybe it's the lack of Myazaki, maybe it's the fact that it was made by a B-team interns while the A-team was making bloodborne, maybe it's both, maybe it's awful slow, clunky and borderline unbalanced gameplay, but I think it's the combination of all 3, a trinity/trifecta of fatal flaws of DS2, the way combat is designed is 1 problem, but I think the whole vibe was off, like it's a bad bootleg rip-off of dark souls by another studio and not real sequel, then after I beat it after hours of suffering, I thought DS1 was just this one time masterpiece, like a lighning in a bottle, something that will never be replicated again then I tried bloodborne and just from the intro alone I was so relieved, so happy and excited that maybe, just maybe dark souls 2 was some kind of a bad joke, like spoiled, rotten *Golden delicious* apple in a basket full of amazing *granny smith* apples, and I was right, it's hard to explain but there's a reason why every game that tried to replicate this genre, like The Surge or Lords of the fallen are absolutely garbage, I'm too lazy articulate the reasons but it's obvious, maybe it's the fact that I absolutely loathed DS2 which made me look at DS3 as better than it is, it probably did, but I still replayed it twice pretty recently as well, it's a great feeling to be able to roll and atack faster after DS3, the character actually drinks the estus flask quickly in the heat of a battle, and not comically slow like in DS2, the immediate boss that's not too challanging but not too easy either with a second phase too open boss area, great art design, despite it being mostly grey, it was already LEAGUES better than DS2, it was a joy seeing "firelink shrine" letters on my screen again, just like every other "reference", it didn't bother me, it felt like a sequel, not a bootleg rip off which feel like it takes place in a different world altogether, the faster combat was also really fun, I am rambling too much, but I think one of the main reasons I like DS3 so much is probably because I hated DS2 so much and the bar was set so low It was basically impossible to get worse. Yes Ds3 is linear, yes it has a couple bad bosses,so what? When DS2 had like 35 of them which were even worse than the bad ones in DS3, I disagree that DS2 picks up in the end game, I don't even remember it, All I remember is that the final boss can be beated by just standing right next to it because it's attacks can't reach you there. I get why some people like DS2, they like it for the exact reasons that I don't, while i do come across as very agressive and negative about DS2, I do understand why and how people can enjoy it, but I just couldn't. I think I rambled enough and you get my point, I'm too lazy to go on.
Honestly yeah, it is my least favorite of the series. Not because of the mechanics, gameplay-wise it's the best one by far, but because it's just a nostalgia trip from one end to the other. It's all "hey remember this from Dark Souls 1? You remember Anor Londo right? Siegmeyer, you guys like him right? Hey, what about Artorias, you remember Artorias don't you?" Honestly this kills replayability. I finished the previous 2 games 3 times each, DS3 I couldn't bring myself to finish it a second time.
You just didn't get the point of what miyazaki was doing. All the references to DS1 and the lore itself tell you that the world is rotting and falling apart if you just repeat it over and over. It was the answer to fans demanding another Dark Souls. Fromsoftware didn't want to do the Assassin's Creed move and bring basically the same game every 6 months, so they wrapped it up in a really epic way and brought stories that weren't finished in part 1 to a tragic end. The whole story of the painted world represents letting go to create something different aswell.
@@Yul_B_Awright oh I perfectly get the "cyclical nature" theme of the game. Doesn't mean it's good design when you just bloat it with references and little else.
For me its the opposite. I have 6 times the hours on ds3 compared to ds1. Its because in ds1 there just wasnt that many bosses that i loved so much i wanna fight them again and the early game was a slog due to no fast travel. While ds3 has a butt load of fantastic bosses. Nameless King, SoC, Twin Princes, Pontiff Sulyvahn, Champion Gundyr, Dragonslayer Armor, Friede, Demon Prince, Midir, and Gael are all bosses i looked forward to fight whenever i started a new playthrough. Ds1 just lacks that with the exception of Londo Duo, Artorias, Manus, Kalameet, and Gwyn.
Ds3 is my favorite because exactly what you’re talking about. Its the smoothest. Its the funnest pve. And the endgame/dlc bosses blow any other game’s out of the water. I agree that trudging through the in between bits gets really old. But idk, the gameplay makes it worth it. If I got stranded on an island and could only bring one game, it’d be ds3.
To be honest if I had to take a guess at the double bonfire, I would assume the maps/areas are made in sections and then bolted together later. We've seen similar bolting in Dark soul's 2 legendary elevator to the volcano. I don't know if that's exactly how it happened, but its what I would assume.
I think the issues with DS2's world are more the result of the game's very troubled development, rather than being the result of incompetence like people such as MauLer would have you believe. The DS2 we got in the end is a far cry from the DS2 they wanted to give us. DS2 is still a vastly superior game in spite of its development hell though, which makes you wonder where DS3 went so wrong with its gameplay and world.
@@boyishdude1234 Real talk bro, I'm not arguing over what game is better, I'm giving a shot in the dark as to why one bonfire is about eighty feet from another bonfire. soulsgames feels like they do a arena/stage building method, you build the stage first, link it later. Demon souls had an easier time doing this as it uses teleport mechanics, you could pretty much sum it up like a mario game, Area 1 stage 1, etc etc. Then they went semi-open world, but may have still maintained some of their stage building methods, daytime at the shrine/firelink, night time in the forest, dawn/dusk in anor londo, they point out to being separate stages/arenas that were linked after the fact, they just happened to mesh together well, may have been a fluke or intentional design, dunno, wasn't in the dev room. Don't care, this is all theory. I don't know who mauler is, and the critique and which game is better has nothing to do with the why one bonfire is eighty feet away from another bonfire. Leave the thread if you can't get on point as to why one bonfire is eighty feet from another bonfire.
Don't forget the fact that we get a bonfire for every boss defeated, which feels goddamn stupid 80% of the time because they are unnecessary. The only really useful boss bonfires I'd say are those from the Dancer and Pontiff, because they lead directly to an area rather than an introductory bonfire for said area. The double bonfire is just that boss bonfire idea pushed to its worst extreme
@@arutemisemtrai9769 What in the blue fuck are you even talking about? Did you even have an actual point..? That was some serious stream of consciousness.
@@boyishdude1234 13:40 is what I was responding to, the specific topic of the bonfires. Why? Because I wanted to know about them. You came in all "DKS2 HHHHHHHHRRHHHHHHHH" and bro, I just wanted to know about the bonfires. Or rather, to get into the specifics, this is a discussion about development, not which is better. This could be two square pegs trying to fuck a circle for all I care. I want to know the development.
ds2: Everyone will go hollow, it's inescapable, all will be forgotten, hardly anything remains from the age of the gods. ds3: Yeah all of ds1 is just kinda there. Remember Anor Londo, all these weapons, all those armor sets, this npc, that area, etc
This was an insightful review; and, ironically, it helped me realize why I like Dark Souls 2 the best: I care about the levels, build variety, and weapon variety more than I care about the bosses. I've said before to folks that I like Dark Souls 2 because while it definitely has a lot of flaws, I always felt like it had a lot of heart and did a lot of unusual and interesting things. That being said, I still really like 1 and 3; it's just that 2 is the one I most enjoy going back to, until a FAST AS FUCK, BOY katana knight knocks me out of stepping through the fog wall to Smelter Demon for the sixth time. 3 has more areas I dread going to, like the back half of Irithyll, the entirety of Demon Ruins, and honestly, Undead Settlement. 1 is solid, but doesn't quite keep my attention as well, and I'm not entirely sure why.
The reason why You like dark souls 2 better is because you're attracted to horrible games. People don't like 3 because it was the easiest one, But in reality it's considered that 2 is the worst even by its own community. And then you want to talk about builds where you can only be a Sorcerer, heavy weapons, advanced weapons, or archery compared to other games That is embarrassing I see more customization in a Mario kart game.
Having played all three main line series games at roughly the same time. Dark Souls 3 is the best in my opinion. Best Music, best bosses in the series, best combat and speed, it all just feels more consistently good. Yes it's the most linear, but I think that plays to it's advantage as the difficulty is easier to balance, there comes a point in Dark Souls 1 and 2 where you can essentially just steam roll the entire game, either by killing every enemy in 1 hit, or just melting/tanking bosses. Dark Souls 3 never has that problem I feel like, you constantly need to stay on your feet and never get too cocky as you progress forward. Not to mention Gael is my favorite boss in any game ever. Then again, I like DS2 over DS1. So maybe I should just be locked in an insane asylum.
The one thing I cannot forgive DS3 for is the removal of poise, because the thing that initially drew me to DS1 was the option to play a slower, defensive style. Rather than just constantly testing my reflexes, like many games in the broader genre, it allowed me to be slow and methodical (while still having the other option). But I felt DS3 kinda forced its playstyle on me instead of giving me options to choose from. Even my Str build felt fast and nimble. If I wanted to be a ninja-high-on-caffeine Dex build I could just play Bloodborne or any spectacle fighter or a million other things. Without the slow, weighty, tactical combat, Dark Souls just isn't Dark Souls for me.
Poise is for hyperarmoring through attacks, and nothing about that says "methodical", it says "berserk". Use a shield. Time your blocks, back steps, parries, thrusts, and slashes. Alternate between light and heavy attacks as needed. DS3 has some of the best methodical gameplay, because you can't just power through incoming attacks. Poise is for fighting games. Dark Souls is an adventure.
Would it have been so hard to basically make it so poise was functionally disabled in PvP, but remained enabled for PvE? And don't forget that in DS3 they also removed the ability to upgrade your armor, so you can't improve the defensive parameters of the armor you want to use, and most armor barely offers any extra defense anyway. ...Not to also mention that the defense calculations are broken for physical elements, so only physical defense matters, and increasing your defenses against slash, thrust and whatever the third one is offers literally no returns compared to just increasing physical defense. God DS3 is such a bad RPG.
@@chrismanuel9768 You can't power through attacks... BUT THE ENEMIES SURE CAN! Okay, not regular ones, but pretty much any mob that is supposed to be a threat (otherwise you could just beat them to death with a fast weapon like the scrubs). And parrying just goes back to the Dex problem, I can't be arsed to learn every single enemy's parry window and then react perfectly to it. No, you can't just guess them with how finicky animations and hitboxes are. I loved medium shields in DS1, 3 made them nearly useless for everything besides parrying since rolling is so OP in comparison. Bloodborne was honest at least and just removed shields. PS: If the devs couldn't even be bothered to give something its own button, then it was not sufficiently important to be integral to one of the (supposedly) main playstyles. That or From just never figured out how to implement a proper control scheme. Considering jumping in DS1, it might have been the latter.
@@andreaslinder8978 what can be aggravating with some mobs even tho I understand why they would do that from a game design perspective is them having similar stun limit as players, some don't even take one hit before acting again and it can feel bad, especially against big shield enemies
I do feel that 3 is probably the best of the trilogy, despite being my least favorite. Besides all of that's been said in the video, what really grates on me is the rate of ambushes and setpieces. At times it feels like it has ADD and is terrified that you won't feel engaged every two steps. Going through the Cathedral of the Deep can feel like one continuous, hour-long ambush. Walk into a clearing, ambush. Walk through a door, ambush. Walk away after grabbing loot, ambush. Take too long dealing with an ambush, delayed secondary ambush. When the combat is so monotone it can become less of a gauntlet and more of a slog, especially on replays when you know it's coming and you're just trying to do your progress checklist.
Dude, I feel the shit out of this. I'd only completed the game one time, but earlier this week I said "Y'know what? I'ma get 100% of the achievements for DS3 before Elden Ring comes out." So I began my second ever playthrough and OH MAN. Shit's just a chore. Less so once I pushed through the first couple hours and got into some territory I couldn't remember quite as well, but even then it's kinda predictable and samey. Feels like High Wall and the bits just after are definitely the the biggest perpetrators of this tho. Which makes a new playthrough kinda offputting imo. I still like the game, ofc, otherwise I wouldn't be doing the achievements thing, but I totally get why it's your least favourite.
Not gonna lie, combat has always been pretty R1 heavy throughout the series. I found myself using R2 more in 3 because you could charge it. Weapon arts have use in a pinch. Linearity doesn’t bother me too much in 3 because a lot of the connecting areas in 1 were underutilized or downright missable during a casual playthrough without a guide. It’s cool realizing Ash Lake, the Painted World, and the return to the Asylum are things you can do, but Ash Lake has no boss fight and very little beyond a second hydra and the dragon covenant. The painted world is legitimately a test area and if you’re under leveled you’re in for a really bad time while stuck there. And the stray demon is a shit boss. Darkroot garden and basin have cool things that were better utilized in Oolacile. PvP in Dark Souls 1 is pretty bad with constant backstab fishing and the overly generous parry frames. Remaster also fixed the egregious issue of being stomped in the undead burg by twink builds during invasions. And referencing dark souls 1 helped build the idea that the world really was folding in on itself. The Kiln of the First Flame in this game shows this literally. Plus like you said it’s enjoyable to see old stuff come back into play if you liked DS1. I honestly believe DS3 has a great narrative, but it is definitely a more direct sequel and it was made to be that swan song that celebrates the series. Being referential isn’t bad. Excellent bosses, cool levels, and a great second half of the game where Dark Souls 1 and 2 both *really* suffered. Plus some really standout optional areas in the demon ruins and archdragon peak that are hinted at through dialogue and NPC quests. Just a good game.
That's a really interesting take on parry frames. I never used parry shields much in DS1 because the connections were usually so bad that I could land unintentional backstabs almost every fight and oneshot w/hornet ring. Unless they updated 3 later on, I remember the parrying being almost laughably easy to the point you could get away with outright mashing L2 in certain situations. I can't remember a single instance where I *didn't* either oneshot the enemy or get oneshot myself as long as hornet ring was in effect. Then again, I never went crazy with PvP guides and optimized builds, mainly stuck to the fashion souls mentality. 2h R2s all the way, lol. Slow as shit, but satisfying to land.
@@TX_LoveGame In 1 you pretty much start parrying at the beginning of the animation, you just had to line it up with your enemy's swings. And yeah backstabs were super easy and still are. In 3 they added starting frames and finishing frames to parries with an active frames window in between. And it was different depending on what shield type you were using (with caestus and the buckler having the most parry frames). So you had to match those frames with an enemy swing with several different weapons. It made parrying somewhat harder to learn, but it could be done effectively by an experienced player.
Soul of Cinder having a Gwyn phase as is final phase including the music is just perfect though. The boss is cycling through all the people that linked the first flame until there is only one left which is of course the one who started the age of Fire to begin with. There couldn't have been a better boss to close out the trilogy. It feels a lot better than the random black Ornstein from DS2 atleast.^^
I'm really conflicted on the Gwyn thing. It IS really thematically cool and it all makes sense, but a little, cynical part of me just sees sort of 'remember this?' nostalgia bait to it.
@@cheesi Nah honestly couldn't have been done better. Having a bit of fanservice is not bad. And Fromsoft Always had recuring elements in their games (Moonlight and Pat being prime exemples). The whole Final Fantasy franchise has a shit tone of it. And there's also Deltarune, Elder Scrolls, Shin Megami tensei... And many more ! Having call backs is neither rare or bad for non-direct sequels. It helps you feel like they're all part off the same thing. And even if Anor Londo and Andre were a bit much the rest was fine. And soul of cinder especially is perfect, remembering the start of a journey is often the best way to appreciate it's end. And it makes even more sens with the theme of endless cycles in Dark souls
@@genbeuden2114 Yeah I disagree with pretty much nothing there, like I said I completely see how cool it is. I juust can't help feeling that way a little :p
I've mentioned before in the bloodborne video that my biggest gripe is how armor does jack all, and how at all points in the game you're one or two shot by any given boss, which doesn't really feel that fair when you're just arbitrarily sent back to square 1 from a singular mistake. I even took the time when I was going against nameless king (last boss I had to fight in the game since I found him after everything) and I just got so frustrated that I took a few hours to level up to be able to equip havel's complete armor set to test exactly how much damage a single hit can do armored vs unarmored because I wanted to see if it did literally nothing. My findings were that with complete havel garb vs unarmored is that havel garb let me heal back to full with one estus swig and unarmored I barely just didn't fill hp back to max, being about 95% hp instead. Armor. Is negligible. I mean, I already heard how poise was bugged and didn't work, but hoo boy, armor value being replaced with a flawed reduction system? That really didn't set well with me. I also found a lot of enemies in the game that my melee attacks just weren't coming out fast enough to hit enemies without also being hit myself, which made me go more into a pyromancy build which made the game far more of a breeze since I'm not needing to worry about tanking the hits (an impossible feat) to deal the damage with melee, but instead I could keep at a distance and time when to dodge vs when to attack and it made the game just a far more managable and enjoyable experience. I also did experimenting with a lot of other builds as I went along, trying out faith (it's crap), plain magic (not as crap), but ultimately I felt like pyromancy was *the* way to go as it just hit everything hard, especially if you juggle using dark pyromancy as well, making fire-based bosses a cinch. Darkeater Midir was the only boss that was a real slog, and that's honestly when I delved into faith because "Dragons are weak to lightening" but hooboy that weakness ain't good if it takes double damage and the damage being dealt is 2 before doubling. I'll take my halved 500 damage, thanks. In the end, I found the game is pretty solid with those gaping flaws aside. I felt like there was no need for me to try a new build on a new playthrough, unlike all other souls games, as I basically *did* it all my first time. Only thing I can think of I'd try is a luck-build with hollow equipment. But that's more of a funky modifier than it is a new way of playing through the game in the sense of use of tools at your disposal. I know you're going to think of me weird for ranking the souls games like this, but I feel that DS1 is an A rank game, DS2 is B, and DS3, bloodborne, and Demon Souls are all C. Which is to say that they're all good in their own rights, but DS1 is just...too good. And DS2 had a lot of good ideas, but wasn't anywhere near as good as DS1, and the other three just had gaping flaws that bring them down. Demon Souls I feel a little bad about putting it as C, but it really is just a far more archaic DS1 in the end of the day. I still like 'em all though, and Demon Souls *is* what got me into the series. I haven't played Elden Ring yet, though, so we'll see what that's like when I do. (I plan on trying to pick it up during steam Christmas sale)
"There are too many gimmick bosses" Funny, here I was thinking there were way too many extremely samey fights between bosses who hold their attack just a second longer.
That's what most bosses have been doing since Artorias of the Abyss. It's not neccesarily a problem, and it isn't evidence for the bosses being samey. You don't fight the Dancer in the same way as Pontiff, and those two are probably the best example of samey bosses.
@@leadfaun Ah but you do fight them the same way- you hit the dodge button at the right time. That's the fight. That's all of these fights. You just said so yourself. There's no interesting environment to fight them in, no disadvantage you have to overcome, no weak point you can go for to reward risky play, no way to turn the arena against them, nothing. In a game with better, more developed combat, like Devil May Cry, that would be fun! But this isn't Devil May Cry, it's a very rudimentary combat system in what was originally a game series that rewarded you for being observant in a holistic fashion, like an adventurer actually would. You can mix up the attack patterns all you want, but they'll still feel like the same fight.
@@noriringtail7428 They all have things that make them unique dancer you have to worry about timing them perfectly the song itself is a clue as to the rhythim of her attacks in pontif its pretty random and hard to react and at end faze you have to deal with a clone meaing to on one so you chose go for the clone or go for pontif Both decisons have advantages and disadvantages going for pontif will end the fight but the clone will keep attacking making it so you have to keep doging the clone while also doging pontif.Another example is the twin princes with teleporting.It may be a simple game yes but its what it does with that simpicity is what makes it special and I would take it over so mindless mess like dmc.
@@noriringtail7428 you hit the dodge button at the right time for all the bosses in the series. We aren’t talking about DS3 compared to other games, we’re talking about DS3 compared to other DS games. Otherwise this isn’t a point I disagree with. Dancer does have a weak point, and Pontiff can be parried. So no, you’re wrong about that specific point. Whether they feel the same is entirely subjective. They are fought differently regardless.
I've played every souls game except for Demons Souls (getting a PS5 for Christmas so it's on my list) And I gotta say Dark Souls 3 is my personal fav besides Bloodborne.. So I can't say I hate it at all. I love it! Edit: watched the whole video and I have to say I fully agree with just about everything Lenny said. He took all the words right out of my mouth. Also the double bonfire was genuinely the most ambitious crossover since the marvel cinematic history. Pretty spicy.
Glad I didn't get a PS5 until a year later, Demon's Souls remake is a good remake but the game itself is my second to least favorite in front of Dark Souls 2.
@@eclecticspaghetti Yea. It's got a few. Mostly getting a PS5 so newer games don't make my PS4 sound like a get engine. *Cough* Ghost of Tsushima *cough*
@@FrankByDaylight playing that on my ps4 pro made my ears almost blow out. on ps5 tho it's so good. RDR2 on ps4 was the loudest thing, which was odd since on my xbox it was ok.
As much as I played DS2 the first, and in "Consequence" its my favorite. Dark souls 3 isn't a bad game. I could be wrong but I think many people look to the first game, and wish the sequels wouldn't be different. But then they're not really new games, just reskinned copies. Also what the fuck, I see people in the comment sections deadass going "Lmao you like DS2? Go check your brain to see you're alright" Not that exact quote but you get the point. Its just a game guys (I shouldn't have typed that) Dark souls 2 is not the devil, its actually pretty enjoyable. And it did do some things well, admitting the game you hate did some things properly will not make you spontaneously combust. E
@@BoshBargnani i couldnt finish ds3 🤷🏼♂️. I was a dark souls head and i couldnt believe that i had no desire to play it. Its below 2 in my list for sure.
No it didnt have to be an exact copy pf ds1 but i had hoped the sequels would do as good a job or better, taking what ds1 did so well and expanding on it.
Well, I had written a very long comment that I accidentally deleted. So to summarize: I'm somewhat enjoying DS3, But I don't think its better than 2 either. (Can't say if 1 is the best or not because I haven't been able to play it yet.) Most of my enjoyment from ds3 comes from the weapon art mechanic and the new graphics, even though I believe DS2 Had some amazing scenery. I do think I overreacted a bit in my first comment though, DS2's combat is definitely not for everyone, I enjoy it very much though.
I always thought of DS 3 as a direct sequel to DS 1 so all the references never bothered me because I just assumed the same world would have the same things in it. Having Andre at Firelink was a bit much though.
DS3's a pretty good game, and I've put a couple hundred hours in. It's fine to concede it's issues. I like the levels a lot, actually, in contrast to what you started on at the end that they're too linear. There's a couple stinkers, sure, like the profane capital, but it honestly has some great levels. Cathedral of the Deep is pretty damn great, the undead town is pretty great, Anor Londo is handled well, and even the shitshow in smoldering lake actually has some good design ideas where you have multiple ways to approach it by either running past the wurm or going down the hole made by the ballista. But, the world design *is* very linear. There's really only one logical path through most of the game, and the only decisions are when to do the lake(if at all), or when to do archdragon peak(if at all). On a related note, build variety I think is actually better than you stated. But, only for when you're actually a stacked out, final build. I did a faith build the first time I played the game, and got the same lame squeaky noise when I found lightning spear. Year or two later after the dlc's had dropped, I did a faith build, got myself to level like 120+ or whatever, with 60 faith, and you know what? Faith kicks ass when you've got the 60 faith! I realized it's because they locked the actually useful spellcasting behind faith/int levels of 50 to 60, along with basically waiting for the "upgraded" versions of spells like getting great lightning spear or sunlight spear, along with getting actually good weapons/spellcasting focuses, *along* with having enough MP to actually use your spellcasting without going OOM immediately. Int builds have similar issues. The end game build is great. But, you have to get there, which means if you're doing a fresh run, you're doing the same thing you've done a million times. Get a raw longsword, silver eagle or whatever your preferred basic shield is, chew through the game until can either farm silver knights in Anor Londo or beat The Dancer and farm the one knight next to the bonfire after her. So you're probably waiting for half to 2/3 of the game to "unlock" your build while basic melee/bleed builds don't need to do anything of the sort and can happily mow through the game as is. Also, my personal beef with the game, more than anything else - after the absolute bastard motherfuckers of Mauldron the Assassin and Jester Thomas were unleashed in DS2's dlc's, I was super disappointed that npc red phantom invasions in DS3 are extremely vanilla. They have no tricks up their sleeve, they don't use the environment to their advantage, they don't BM you with emotes.
cathedral is the worst area in the game, mostly due to how buggy the patches/sieg quests are, but also because the area is just shit. pre cathedral area is just a bunch of respawning maggot zombies from the dungeon with a few shitty items sitting around. the actual cathedral is a linear trek through a boring area with shitty enemies, and ds3's version of the covetous demon.
I hate when people talk about how "har har DS3 has too much DS 1 fanservice cuz they reference it here and there" as if they werent 2 games of the same franchise, DIRECTLY CONNECTED IN LORE, like that's the entire point of Ds3 to refence past entries and contineu and even properlly finish the story of the series as a whole, why are people like this?
I agree with so many points in this. Dark souls 3 is probably my least favorite souls game, but I still can't bring myself to hate it. Dark souls 1 introduces things slowly for new players, but experienced players can use the master key to take a wildly different approach to the beginning and build in many different ways to start with. Dark souls 2 allows you to jumpstart any build within 2 boss kills. It's fantastic. The slowness of the combat is a big difference from the others, and soul memory could have been great with 1 tiny change. Dark souls 3 is a great game, but it is so much more linear. For a PvP player, starting new builds is a chore more than anything else. The bosses are fun enough. The pvp mechanic of how invasions work inmediately stacks odds against you. The worst thing to me about dark souls 3 is how much I want to love about it, that is just ripped from something else. Abyss watchers is a cool design and a neat fight. Phase 2 is just Maria again. Large sweeps of bloody fire. Gael is the coolest end boss ever. He is literally just the orphan of kos. With a crossbow. I love the gimmick fights. Demon's souls is as entertaining as it is because every boss is a new puzzle. First fight with the deacons and figuring out how the HP bar works was a nice thing. Wolnir and breaking the bracelet before he pushes too far forward is super cool. Ancient wyvern is the natural progression of the dragon god. They felt like evolutions of Demon's Souls. But then. Almost every, single, boss fight had to have the Phase 2. And it felt like just buildup so they could pull the rug during freide's fight. TL;DR Every Souls game has faults, and people see more from the ones they like the least, and everyone should be able to see the good and the bad in all of them.
@@ZeroLenny true enough. I've put more hours into ds2 than the other 2 combined, and just recently got it on steam to play again on PC, and it does, unfortunately, have the lowest lows of the series. Some of the highest highs though. It is by far the most... Inconsistently good game.
@@ZeroLenny at least Ds2 was trying new things. Ds3 seems to have been designed to be the simplest, most mechanically accessible Souls game possible. There is no exploration because maps are linear, nearly every boss can be killed by spamming r1 with a dex weapon, invaders are a joke now. I understand that making a game simpler can help it appeal to newer players but I really think it came at the cost of making a very boring, sterile game.
I really do enjoy you sharing your insight on dark souls. People who have played it for a long time truly understand that it's far from perfect but it's still the greatest thing ever.
For me DS3 gets the title of “best of the trilogy”. Bosses always were my favorite part of Miyazaki-soft games. Regular game had SoC, Nameless, AW, the Twins, then came the DLC, Friede and the 3 phases of fun, Gael, and literally every DLC boss was at the very least descent (talking about the PvP boss here). IRL, people always love DS3 and BB. I guess the key word here is speed. This games give good i-frames by default and while they are more linear, they also provide better enemy scaling because of that. DS1 and 2 are for people of “certain tastes” from what I gathered. The combat is way slower in both (turn based almost, although that argument has the flaw of being a Hitless guide when followed to a t) and while they earn replay ability because of the choice of paths, it’s clear that some enemies will become harder thanks to your decisions while also getting a guaranteed easy boss rush at the end. Twins and Gherman are good challenges compared to a late game Nito or the Lost Sinner. And finally there is Sekiro. IMO Miyazaki games are always improving with new releases. It can be played with only parry and attack, but knowing which attacks are better do dodge, mikiri, jump-stomp, as well as the Shinobi prosthetic and combat arts have made that game easily have the best combat that’s peek gaming. Elden Ring will have a hard time improving on that but I’m sure that game will compensate with having a lot of content (Sekiro’s amazing gameplay came at the cost of balancing only around PvE and only having 1 main weapon). Yet Sekiro also exposes the community. It had all the qualities that make DS3 and BB god games (and in my list, Sekiro stands with this 2 masterpieces) yet the lack of overleveling and very demanding gameplay made many ragers hate on it and Mr Casual can’t call a friend when he is stuck. Souls was never a game about difficulty. I view it as a journey. In an age were games try to be like movies Fromsoft has given us a game that values gameplay at the core. A playground with lore that can transport you into a different world (learn to read, don’t wait for the Vaati videos!). Difficulty is not wether the game is hard or easy, but a test on how much we evolved as a player on the journey. We don’t eat NG+7 broken sword Gael’s for breakfast because he got nerfed, but rather we have the ability to know his entire moveset and we take our favorite approach!
You pretty much don’t say anything in this comment except stupid shit. Ds3 was a bad game and a bad souls game. It has no player freedoms; it’s build variety is abysmal. I’ve never seen a game with such bad build variety. It had shitty bosses. Bosses being flashy doesn’t mean anything when they’re painfully easy and take no actual thoughtful strats to beat. Literally hit once or twice and then roll spam dodging their whole combo with ease.. Neither twins nor Gerhman are hard. Twins also have a lot of artificial difficulty which doesn’t matter much cos of how easy the game is.. Also souls are literally about difficulty. Miyazaki has said it himself. They’re supposed to be super difficult to make you feel accomplished. Which doesn’t really explain why his future games are so easy and why ds3 holds the players hands in everything they do.. Also a lot of the things you said about learning moveset and challenge applies to ds3 the least. You don’t need to do any of that, bc it’s not hard. You just spam roll mid attack, roll extremely soon in the recovery frames for your attack and effortlessly dodge everything with ease. You don’t need to know what the attack is or what direction to roll in, You just wait until you see their arm move and then roll spam towards them and you won’t ever get hit
Y'know some people say that DS3 is a little too easy, and I've always come to disagree. It depends where you start. Ds3 was my first game, so DS2 and DS1 were PAINFULLY easy with my first playthrough having single digit deaths and DS1 feeling like Blocking/Weapon Deflection simulator. DS2 is the one I like the gameplay the least, because everything feels so samey. In DS1 and 3 you can feel the difference between individual weapons when you attack with them.. in DS2 all light weapons feel the same and all heavy weapons feel the same. I loved every game and played them ALL to death and while DS3 has the least interesting design choices, it is the highest quality of the three while still posing a fair bit of challenge for nearly every player. Those extra I frame given to you are countered by the speed and agression of bosses. Nearly every boss is able to rollcatch, starting with vordt even. Saying the game is just rollspam is completely wrong because they thought of that when making the game, just like DS1 isn't all about blocking or DS2 isn't all about... honestly idk ds2 is a very weird game and has no focus, not a bad thing tho. The final boss felt more like a love letter to the player than the stupid nostalgia bait everyone says it is. DS3 is not a weak game held up by nostalgia and callbacks, it's a strong independent standalone game filled with love for the first two (and even Demon's Souls)
@@zzodysseuszz ds2 had the easiest bosses, the game is hard cuz of the shitty amount of enemys thrown everywhere( quantity over quality ), ds1 bosses where also no hard so ig ds3 is the hardest It just depends what's the one u start with
@@zzodysseuszz I feel like you haven't even played the game or you've played so much of the other games to the point where you just breezed through it because of your experience. There's a simple solution to this, if the game is too easy for you then you have the option to make it harder. You're obviously too good for this game so why don't you try something to make it harder like an sl1 run? And no, I don't believe you if you say an sl1 run isn't hard either, the bosses will take so long to the point where they WILL catch you out of your rolls at some point like they're designed to and most of the late game bosses' attacks WILL one shot you. After playing through DS3 a few times and knowing the boss attack patterns off by heart, I played an sl1 run and it felt like I was playing the game with no previous experience again so I heavily recommend it if the regular game is too easy for you.
I recently started DS3 and it's the first souls game I've ever played, so I can't say if it's better than the previous ones, what I can say tho is that it's a great game, I still find it very challenging but in the best way possible possibly because of the simplicity of the fighting mechanics, it makes me feel challenged but not overwhelmed while remaining entrataing because of it's smoothness and precision, I feel like it's the perfect place to start if you never played a souls game
My main reason for disliking... well not dislike.. but i didnt like it as much as the other entries due to armor not really meaning shit. In ds1 if you invested heavily into endurance and wore the heaviest strongest armor it felt like it. When you play DS3 if you in rags or havels armor it all feels the same when you get hit.
I play these games for the experience while the difficulty is secondary. The interconnected world and vague story telling keeps me thinking about it. Each time you reach a new area or read a description and connect a piece after piece until the story becomes clearer and clearer. Even when Dark souls 3 had a fair bit of big holes, it was still enjoyable, I keep my judgement with my first experience. I loved it them, and I still love it now.
One thing people fail to mention when they say that ds3 is too linear with it`s level design is the fact that ds1 and 2 are alo very linear (realistically), while you can go to a bunch of different places at the start, you often don't have a good reason to because the enimes in most of those places are going to destroy you.
I feel Ds3 discourages spamming rolls and R1’s on the mid to late game bosses. Examples like pontiff, dragon slayer, nameless king, soul of cinder, champion gundyr, twin princes, Gael, friede, and midir punish panic rolling or getting over zealous with R1’s. Specifically in friede fight it pays to use the stomp weapon art to knock or down or use R2’s in gaels fight to poise break him during an attack
DS2 is my favorite because of how many weapon options there are to play with, all the fashion and easier bow builds for when I'm in the mood. DS1 is my favorite for the map design and layout. DS3 is my favorite for the polish to all the leveling and multiplayer components and how it feels when you play, its the same but a much smoother experience. Bloodborne is my favorite because it takes the DS formula and twists it into a new and exciting experience with new lore, trick weapons and slight variations on the combat which opened me up to shield-less playthroughs in the other games. Each game has its place and I bounce between them when one gets stale but I always return because they're fun for their own specific reasons.
I honestly never get why people hated DS2 so much. It was way more interesting than DS1. I even ended up missing some of the mechanics in DS3. But I realy love them all. They are not perfect... But which game is!
@@Spoopy_man personally I think so, yeah. Although they are pretty close. I'd say that Old Hunters is better than Ivory King, on par with Iron King, and behind Sunken King.
i just hate that delay after you hit any button. i didnt notice anything in bloodborne and elden ring but ds3 has a whole half second after you hit a button before you start the action
The game is heavy on ds1 references but I think it gets away with it because it sets itself up as being a direct sequel in the first 5-15 mins of the game (depends on how long it takes you to get to firelink shrine) compare that to DS2 where it basically has no real connection but randomly we get Dragonslayer Ornstein boss fight
Exactly. People complain on DS3 referencing DS1 a lot like it's a problem, then being totally ok with DS2 going in a completely different direction without even feeling like it's the same franchise. Like they have no idea what a sequel means. If there's one complaint I have for DS3 is that they missed the opportunity to include more stuff from DS2 lore to fix the problem with that game being too apart from the rest of the trilogy.
My favorite PVE experience is Demon's souls and Dark souls 1, I never thought that bosses were that important, since I always treated them more like a milestone to my progression, exploration and atmospheric immersion mattered more for me. Seeing game altering from mainly complex multi level exploration + combat to linear boss rush with enemies on crack was kind of disappointing.
@@shira_yone You can pick any world you want, only mandatory boss is 1-1 phalanx, you can even kill Allant pretty early, if you wish. Travelling into any world, exploring and fighting bosses in any order really opens you a lot of possibilities, also world design in DeS is built in more smart, DS1-like way, where you have only one checkpoint with plenty of shortcuts and ways to return to previously visited locations.
In this game I think the levels really really took a hit. I never wanna spend time exploring and collecting everything most NG+ runs I just sprint as fast as I can to the boss
-DS3 kinda spits in DS1 lore, as well as ignoring all of DS2 lore. -The multiplayer is deeply flawed, only bloodborne robs it the crown for the most troubled souls PVP -There are tons of npc quests that are SOOOOO unsatisfactory, specially taking into account that people have to go through basically lost time to get the rewards. -No early build diversity, even despite having many options to adopt, and not all of those options are completely viable. - No sense of discovery or excitement, many of the enemies are either uninspired (sooo unlike what a souls game should offer) or direct reappearences or old enemies from DS1. - Only one of the endings offer a fresh alternative to the typical light or dark endings, just like DS2. - NG+ potential is completely destroyed - Bonfires everywhere, literally everywhere. - Fanservice everywhere, even where it should't be any. - Item drops are a torture. - I find some of them fun, but the hacking issue was (or is???) crearly the most severe of the trilogy, I dont remember that much of a softban problem in the other games, for one. The game is not bad, I enjoyed most of it and, as it is, we have a decent fun souls game, but you are not playing a evolution of the mechanics, you are not playing Dark Souls lll, you are actually playing Dark Souls 1 Part lll, where it shouldn't be a part lll, and it hurts a little.
I don't hate DS3, but it's definitely the weakest in the series for me. I think its biggest problem is that it tries to emulate Bloodborn, but still be Dark Souls. So it ends up in this weird in between where everything feels too fast while the player feels too slow. If I wanted to play Bloodborn, I'd play Bloodborn. If I'm playing a Dark Souls game, then I want it to feel like Dark Souls.
Right? They want to force you to dodge and attack the same way as BB, but the dash in BB is far far better for countering. They won't let you tank anything in this game at all......
I was a dark souls head. Ive beaten the first 1 doezens of time, it may be one of my favorite games ever made. Imagine my surprise when i couldnt force myself to finish ds3 once. Linearity and gimmick bosses were dumb but the combat especially is what bored tf out of me and to this day ive never played past mid game🤷🏼♂️
@@BellXllebMusic yea dude i feel like im crazy sometimes. Not many people seem to agree with me on this lol. I tried to force myself to get through it and couldnt. I couldnt believe i had no desire to finish a souls game. Ive even beat 2 multiple times and i dont really like 2. If play any of then now its always 1
as my first souls game honestly it was really fun to experience rolling through bosses using the weapon i got from my starting class until the end lol. i played hollow knight before this, and a lot of the bossfights in that game were really fun, reacting to attacks and dashing away/through them to get quick hits in, and especially nightmare king grimm, so this game just kinda felt like that, with some much better bosses, on a much more linear progression. definitely a good starting souls game, but i'm looking forward to playing the previous titles (i might just do dark souls 2 for the fuck of it next)
I recently just 100% all 3 of the games and honestly DS3 is my least favorite as well, DS1 had incredible lore, and DS2 has a weird charm to the game that gets me nostalgic, but DS3 felt kinda soulless, a lot of things were just various shades of grey and it felt the most forced out of the 3 imo
I’m convinced dark souls players don’t know what a sequel is, they’re not “references” it’s quite literally a continuation of the story in the same exact world, of course there’s going to be references
I think that if DS2 never existed, and DS3 was released as DS2, no one would really be complaining about the DS1 references. DS2 was set in a completely different place than DS1, and had nods to DS1 but buried into its own lore. DS3 being a return to DS1's story to finish it was probably somewhat jarring for people who had been playing DS2 since it's so disconnected from DS1's lore (compared to DS3, at least). Thought some things in DS3 are more references/fanservice than just being a sequel. Like Anor Londo and the Aldrich/Gwyndolin plot line I'd mark as a continuation of the story, but Siegward's side quest was a pretty clear reference to Siegmeyer from DS1, and was definitely there for fanservice rather than because it's a sequel.
Ds3 was also the best Souls game in terms of not reusing bosses. I mean Gundyr was reused, but he got a new moveset. Crystal Sage and Dragonslayer Armour were reused, but it was only once, and that's really it.
Souls 3 is the "most souls-y" game of the trilogy in the best and worst ways. Personally, I was always meh on 3 because, of the series, i always had the atmosphere i enjoyed the least. Its why with all their faults, OG Demons' Souls and DS2 are my favorites, something about their tone and atmosphere really vibes with me compared to the others.
I LOVED how dark soul's Map connected, one of my favorite things and it always made return play throughs feel like coming back to a familiar cozy place. Dark Souls 3 has NONE of that and it's still my favorite Dark Souls game, which I think says something about the REST of the game itself.
I know it’s not all connected and there’s nothing that connects back to the shrine like in DS1 but it does connect a fair bit. Like you can run from Anor Londo all the way back to Undead Settlement without having to fast travel. It is linear and there are areas that don’t connect like undead settlement and high wall but most areas do connect to each other just very linearly
The lightning miracle hit wayy to close i though lenny literally spied me ive spent 3 hours grinding souls at the sewage entrance to Gwynevere painting and only to know the damage beyond shit but thank god ive discovered the finger of rosaria lol
I don't mind the DS1 references, it felt good to have a more direct sequel to it, also I think in the year of our lord 2021 magic has become much more viable in PvP at least (how many backwards facing backsteppers with soulmass do you see?) I don't know about PvE, but also I think weapon arts could get a little more credit than you gave them, with the right infusions and stat scaling a lot of them are the strongest attack in your arsenal and can cut fight times in half (murakumo spin slash ftw) my biggest criticism of the game would be the linearity but as you mentioned its not as big of a deal due to the quality of the bosses, also as a PvPer I feel like the linear design allows you to get to the parts of the game that are good for PvP faster which is nice, good video though lenny, lots of valid points
Just because I see lots of people backstepping around with CSM doesn't mean it works. DS3 fans are pretty notorious for their cope mentality - it works like an abusive relationship. They ignore the 80% bad for the 20% good in PvP. Or they go full hollow and twink the fuck out of the early game. As of yet, the only weapon are I have seen to be useful is Perserverence because poise and Gundyr's charge because it tracks well and Chase loves quick-swapping it to kill runners. All other weapon arts commit way too much and just aren't worth trading for R1 spam and reactive spacing.
I disagree completely. Every time I picked up a weapon and used its art I put myself at a disadvantage. Maybe there are exceptions but if you go through the game multiple times and not one time a feature is useful, it is a complete failure.
Looking at pvp games as a whole I just do not understand the appeal of dark souls pvp. I mean just watch a fight, and then watch a fight from another pvp game and you notice just how stupid DS pvp looks.
@@slinkyslink5161 DS pvp is great, it requires a lot of mechanical knowledge as well as skill, the netcode has just always been trash in these games, but the collision is satisfying, a good duel is always fun for me
@@monsieurdorgat6864 I disagree, the PvE is fun as fuck too, also twinking is meh, especially on PC with access to things like the honest merchant mod, but also in regards to the weapon arts my point was that they do alot more damage and are more useful than lenny made them seem, im not trying to say theyre the end all be all to R1s but they are an effective way to output lots of damage and from did a good job of balancing them because when they do work theyre devastating so its only right that they should be very punishable
to me, this game stands against almost every aspect of the souls series that i loved, even entirely removing some of my favorite game mechanics instead of just nerfing them into the ground. this is legitimately the first ive heard of any consensus that the game is disliked, or even notably flawed.
They definitely overcorrected when they nerfed magic in this game. I've tried so many times to get a mage build off the ground in DS3 and they've all ended in failure. It just takes so long before you're able to get all the stuff you need. Like, DS3 mages will be level 90, about to fight the Soul of Cinder, and be like "Ah, my build is finally starting to come together."
I did see some success as a pyromancer using Carthus Flame Arc to buff my sword, but then I realized that's just a melee build with extra steps
Pretty much every "magic" build I tried had turned into melee with some buffs to add extra damage. Magic is absolutely pointless, tbh.
Literally just be a full fledged Pyromancer wtf lol my witch has 2 gloves and all my dps comes from those, I just think you're stuck in the beta male melee grindset
Sorcery and pyromancy are pretty strong imo. its just miracles that kinda suck on their own, but they can be useful when u mix em with a melee build.
Magic was shit in every souls games. It was either OP or underwelming. But always boring
lol who the shit wants to play a mage when you got a big fuck off sword to use
I never realized people hated this game. I loved it. Some of the most fun I had. It's got the nostalgia with its own tasteful spin and great quality of life editions.
I hate with total disgust in my heart. I tried to enjoy it but some games you can't get into.
@@dineez627 what was so bad?
I’ve found it has as much replay ability as DS1 too. I get the same satisfaction of building up my character in both games- that classic RPG feeling, but in a purely unique souls way.
I never realised that people thought this was bad too until I started these review vids!
@@ZeroLenny thats crazy man. A shame honestly with all the fun me and the bois had on this game.
I actually really enjoyed the DLC ending with Gael. You, and him, are the only remaining lives in the world. He's an undead just like you, and he's been fighting for a very long time, through many difficult battles, just like you. He's finally reached his goal, and it turns out he can't even use the blood he required. Dark souls 3 may be gray and drab, but I like to imagine that's somewhat the point. Dark souls 3 is symbolizing the end. Not just the end of the story, the end of the world. Everything is dying, the world is a shattered husk of what it used to be. Even aldrich, who looks like dark sun gwyndolin, is meant to be a monster who devoured so many others that he lost his human form completely. Even soul of cinder is depressing. SOC isn't Gwyn, but a culmination of everyone who's ever linked the fire, and killing him means the end, I would imagine. The story is depressing and drab, but Dark Souls reminded me that a good story doesn't have to end in a bang, or even a whisper. It could end like DS3. Dark, cold, and quiet.
PS: I also wanted to mention that the linear nature of the world makes sense to me. You're being told where to go. In DS1, you kind of explore and figure things out yourself, but your task is to link the flame, and there is no grand adventure. You decide to end the age of fire (in the ending I like to think is canon) and realize that no matter what happens, you don't matter. You aren't the hero, and once you fulfill your task, you'll be forgotten about. There are many bosses who were also forgotten about. Nameless King, abandoned and shunned, Yhorm, isolated and alone, Abyss Watchers, disbanded and slaughtering each other mindlessly, High Lord Wolnir, hanging on to his last thread of humanity, avoiding the abyss directly behind him in his boss room, Darkeater Midir, fighting endlessly, yet all in vain, SLAVE KNIGHT GAEL, the last remnant of humanity, and finally, Iudex Gundyr. The first boss you fight, and the one that has the most tragic fate in the game. He made it to firelink shrine, but the firekeeper was dead, and the flame had faded. If his duty being failed wasn't enough, he was struck down by an unknown warrior, and made a sheath for the coiled sword. You know, the sword that lets you start the game. His only remaining task is to be killed, over, and over, to test the mettle of undead like you. He has no grand death, or a symbolizing story. Just someone who failed in everything except dying.
There's the girl with the cool staff thing to
It is definitely the point. It's the end of the world, and everyone knows it.
The dying world doesn't have to be gray everywhere LUL
Beautifully said, friend.
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Something I feel doesn't get praised enough about DS3 is the absolute god-tier music. Every track is phenomenal, but Pontiff, Yhorm, Soul of Cinder, and frankly, all of the DLC music is hall of fame material.
And vordt the musics iconic
Dog, I could not agree more. Slave Knight Gaels theme at the end around 8:20, is SPINE chilling, with that beautiful violin refrain from the very beginning, tying the whole damn series together, can summon emotions within me I didn't know I had. Forget hall of fame, try God of Music award.
To me, the hardest boss in the game was getting past the title menu music. It was too good. It beat me every time.
Most consistently amazing soundtrack out of all fromsoft games
The soundtrack is so good that it has transcended the Dark Souls community and shows up in random meme videos all over the Internet.
I think that something that's worth mentioning is that at the time of release the phrase that kept floating around a lot was "series fatigue". There was a lot of hype surrounding the launch of the game, but some longtime fans were kind of disappointed that the game didn't reignite their passion for the series after DS2 in some big way. That feeling was compounded by the mountain of references to past games, the bleak setting and the endings which were all pretty depressing (they are good and go very well with the setting, but they don't make you feel triumphant, so some felt tired of the game by the end).
However, over time this feeling faded for those who picked up the game again, plus all of the new fans who loved it. Hell, most of them started with DS3. I think it's quite common to find this game at the top of many people's lists nowadays, for good reasons.
Maybe series fatigue is a good way of describing part of my feelings. I just felt really uninspired playing it (picked it up about 6 months after release). I attributed that to the R1 spamalam and not feeling challenged, but maybe it had more go do with my expectations Vs what we ended up getting. This is the first comment I've seen that has made me want to give it a go again. For the record, I played through it once, farted around with PvP for a week or so and then dropped it.
@@TrueBorn44 Good luck, I haven't played it since Ringed City in 2017
The fire fades...
@@kendlerkendler2667 I bought the DLC and still never played it...
This is my experience, I played every souls game in reverse starting with Bloodborne, then DS3, DS2, etc.
Because of that, Dark Souls 3 is my favourite souls game, and in comparison I think Dark Souls 1 is the worst game just in general. Didn't enjoy really any part of that game for whatever reason. Probably has to do with it being an older game
One thing you missed was level variety. I think most of the areas were really well designed from a mechanical perspective, but there are too many cathedral/church-like areas, and Dark Souls 2, while it had nonsense interconnectivity, did have more interesting and varied areas to go.
With all that being said, Dark Souls 3 is still an excellent game, its perfectly fine to love a piece of media, warts and all.
@@flash1face1 so I'm wondering why would you rank 2 higher than 3?
@@flash1face1 fair enough but quick question isn't the adaptability in ds2 a real kick in the nuts for builds as the increase in invincibility frames in the roll way too good too not level it up in the begining?
@@flash1face1 that is the very reason i prefer dark souls 2 too. ds3 makes me sad for the variety of the game
DS3 is GOOD, it has the best boss design of any of the games but it’s areas are lacking, each of the souls games have strengths and weaknesses
@@Eis_Cold same thing The Container said + you can finish the game without leveling adp. I did so on my first playtrough because i forgot to level it
I've never heard anyone say that DS3 was bad lmao, mostly applauding the great bosses and combat instead
Didn’t have the same interconnected worlds like DS1 and DS2. Bosses were better, PvP was worse than 2. Overall fun game though.
@@thekingisdead6411 DS2 wasn't interconnected either
@@opgroundzero2.0 it was more interconnected than DS3.
@@thekingisdead6411 at least 3 doesn't have areas designed to be on their own and then "connected" together because higher ups said "Gottabe like DS1" tho
You're deaf then
Playing through Dark souls 3 for the first time right now. While the overall map is quite linear in terms of backtracking to old areas, the game itself does constantly present you with multiple options and fills you with the desire to explore. Take the Undead settlement as an example. You can sprint right through, kill the ice sword boy and speedrun the area, or you can take the time to talk with the giant, fight the fire demon and explore that mansion, join the mound-makers, take on a big tree and numerous other activities. In addition, every other area splits into two branching paths. Giving you options of where to go next.
There's a lot of cool set pieces in the levels too. taking your Undead Settlement example, all the hollows around the burning pile of bodies until you show up, then later with the giant practicing his javelin throws for the Age of Fire Olympics
At the start of the game there isn't alot of options bar run through everything.
@@wilfredwayne7139 I wouldn’t say that. You could always just open up the late game areas before fighting the game’s “first” boss by fighting Dancer early if you have the chops for it. Dancer definitely serves as a wall to keep you out, but it’s still an option.
If anyone thinks there's too much backtracking in ds3 don't ever play ds1 and ds2.
@@sicthemutt there's alot of backtracking but ds1 is the best in the series.
I think one of the best qualities DS3 has over the others is that it feels like a strong, complete, and fun game from start to finish. There are not really any places where I thought that it looked/felt rushed while being backed up by easily the best boss fights in the series. When comparing it to DS1 (which I do love and have played several times), DS1 has a lot of lackluster boss fights (capra, Bed of Chaos, pinwheel, the triple asylum demons, etc.) and a TERRIBLE second half with locations like lost izalith, the catacombs, and that big ugly yard in the dukes archives followed by invisible catwalks. Although DS3 has its own flaws, I can look past them since its just such a strong title.
I agree.
Tbh the only part i felt rushed and didnt like was lothric castle, the grand archives, armour dragonslayer, dragon barracks and the princes upper arena are waaay to close to each other only to be linked together by 5 or so elevators/shortcuts while being 20 steps away from each other, i know its a castle but come on, so lame i was at least expectig some creative interconnection that far into the game, in DS1 there were some elevators too but really nice placed all over the map.
I feel like it's so grounded it feels uninspired, like it's a really solid game, nearly flawless, but it also feels like it lacks so much ambition and didn't try to innovate in any meaningful way
Triple Asylum demon exists because some players won't encounter stray demon, I would say the game gets better as it goes along because early bosses like crystal sage, deacons of the deep, rotten great wood, high lord wolnir. I feel like almost every area was designed to be ran through, and even if that is the case so many bosses can be accessed without even doing their level. The design has always fell flat for me, especially because of the lack of interconnectivity
The begining of dark souls is so good, but later areas is just a bore.
DS 1 has one the best interconnected worlds in gaming history.
DS 2 has impressive build variety, which I suppose makes for an interesting PvP meta (don't really much care about DS PvP personally, but it is a plus).
DS 3 has the most fun and spectacular PvE battles, especially bosses. I mean...Gael.
Overall winner: Bloodborne
yeah Bloodborne is something else , but what I don't like about Bloodborne is , when I'm playing dark souls 3 , I believe in my self , this guy is nothing or , fuck that guy , it ez but in Bloodborne I'm always scared for what happens next , I'm always scared of fighting , in demon souls and dark souls I feel safe but not in Bloodborne
@@ingoyamathewise8654 thats the whole goal of the bloodborne setting, fear, and it ties well with its cosmic horror theme.
@@flzerocs yeah I know , but still
But bloodborne isn’t part of the souls series, it’s more like a official souls like game
Bloodborne worst map design easily and most boring bosses
I really do agree about the map section. Dark souls 1's map with how so many levels connected back to each other was IMO one of the biggest highlights of the game and Im sad none of the games continued it
ywah, it made the game feel open world even though it was somewhat linear. great fucking map design kudos honestly, cant blame the sequals for not living up to that giant task either, they are both by all means great map design imo, just got spoiled with ds1
Sekiro
I agree
3 has a few areas connected through the swamp.
I mean bloodborne low key referenced it at least.
The progression from area to area is pretty linear in DS3 but I also feel like there is enough to explore in the levels themselves. Exploration is usually rewarded pretty well in this game, when replaying the game I found so many things I missed on my first playthrough. I also thought the 'secret' areas were really cool, like dark Firelink Shrine and Archdragon Peak.
Did you play the Ringed City DLC?
@@molasorrosalom4846 i never played any dlc in any souls games and i dont know why.
$$$😢
Open Worlds suck, nothing I hate more than traveling 5 minutes to the next objective.
The most disappointing part of 3 for me was definitely the magic system. Magic (and arcane ig) in recent souls has always felt like a missed opportunity, and the weakness of it in 3 was just a kick in the nuts.
I mean it always has been shit in one way or the other(as in the first few games it was too strong, and in the later ones it was too weak) It also never felt like the games where even designed around magic
One of the main problems is that, while the FP bar is in theory a nice idea, they kept Attunement and the mechanic to slot and swap spells on the go, the EXACT same, so neither purpose of it (have a more plentiful and diverse amount of spells at once) is actually true. In fact, even worse because ATT doesn't add extra charges/Spell like it used to in 2... Meaning that unless you're sacrificing health recovery for mana recovery that also requires an animation+swap cost: all for the sake of spells that are spread out extremely arbitrarily (Dancer skip or do the entire early game with the starting two spells lmoa), and *of course* extremely gear/stat demanding if you could get over everything else
@@arnust7113 Cant you get Orbeck right before crystal sage with only killing Vordt?
Yea I can see this! I never really do magic so I didn't bring it up xx
@@ZeroLenny Look at this nerd, not using farron dart
To me, the linear nature of DS3 used to be a bit disappointing.
But honestly, looking back at it, how it’s the last game in the series.
It almost feels like the march to the end of the series, where you aren’t exploring anymore, you’re on your quest to link the fire, there’s no question anymore, the firekeeper is there telling you directly, no mysticism or anything.
It’s kinda sad? You have barely any choice, no matter where you go, you’ll always end up in the same place.
But then you choose your “end” to the series.
In retrospect, I appreciate it in a weird way.
DS3 will always be my favourite DS, for both PvE & PvP I feel
I never understood why people harped on the linearity, to be honest, how many people really used the non-linear formula of the first two games rather than following the standard intended path?
@@archbishopofthecrusades9579 majority of the DS3 haters come from DS2 fans, they're butthurt that their favorite game sucks so instead of accepting the criticism, they rather shit on DS3.
@@archbishopofthecrusades9579 I feel like some people think about the fact that it’s there.
from a pure gameplay aspect standpoint, 1 & 2 have more non-linear options than 3, sure. But I don’t think that considers the full picture at all
This world is begging for you to end it's suffering caused by the endless cycles of the flame. It's a march to end things once and for all (for the series and the game's world), not to bring them to the beginning again.
In a weird way yeah, this being the last in the trilogy and also being straightforward do kinda go hand in hand
The combat is probably my favourite part of DS3 tbh. It's so smooth and snappy, just like Bloodborne. I'll give DS1 the better story and world design, but the combat in 3 just cannot be beat for me.
the reason I think a lot of people dislike DS3 is that DS2 did a lot of experimenting and so in my opinion they did not get all the experience they learned in DS2 so DS3 suffered and felt disappointing in some aspects if you loved DS2.
@@fosphor8920 i just dont like ds3 combat. Its not cuz it didnt experiment. I wouldnt want it to be like ds2. Ds1 is far superior
@@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725 ds1 is in my opinion the worst. Bunch of havels lagg stabbing don't seem like good gameplay to me
@@fosphor8920 im not talking about pvp. Backstabs are dumb.
When you get someone who wants to actually battle it was great though.
@@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725 ah true, yet DS2 pvp rly nailed the gameplay for me and DS3 r1 spam ain't tjat exciting
Pontiff Sulyvahn is my favorite boss in the entire souls series. He kicked my ass 20+ times over the course of several hours, but I never got angry when I died because any of his attacks felt unfair, I only got angry because I KNEW that I had played like shit and didn't dodge the attack correctly. In my eyes he is the epitome of what a very challenging, but completely fair boss fight should be like. Not to mention that he has one of the absolute best boss OST's in the entire souls series.
You played dark soule 2?
Pontiff has one kind of bullshit move in phase one where he does a quick stab with the purple dagger. It doesn't do a lot of damage but it's kind of like Gwyn's quick slash from DS1 in that it's a guaranteed hit unless you were already dodging or out of range. That attack really only becomes a problem with super low health or at sl1 though.
Interestingly Pontiff was actually supposed to be the final boss at one point.
Also Pontiff's lore is really cool (I hope I have this right) - The world you play most of DS3 in is an illusion, created by Pontiff. The real state of the world is what you see in the Kiln of the First Flame and Dreg Heap, where the world became warped to all hell thanks to the age of fire being prolonged unnaturally for so many millennia.
When I went on my Souls binge and got to Soul of Cinder, my face lit up when I heard Gwyn's theme but then realised after that, that would be the last time I'd ever hear it in the series. Because of that, DS3 will always have a special place in my heart along with all of the other games. I always thought this was the community's favourite of the trilogy but I was surprised by this video and found myself agreeing with the criticisms. Is it my favourite game? No. But is it a damn good one? Without a shadow of a doubt, yes.
I'm genuinely happy that a lot of fans loved that moment. I started with DS2, so a lot of the DS1 callbacks didn't do much for me. That moment had its impact lessened for me because I had spent a lot of time in between DS2 and the release of 3 watching lore vids and such, and almost every one had that song playing in the background. It got remixed, ran into the ground, and everything else to the point I compared it to the Wily Stage 1 theme in MM2.
That said, I wouldn't have chosen any other theme to end the true final boss with, so I'm glad the fanbase as a whole got something positive from it.
@@TX_LoveGame I agree with you, it could be interpreted that the comeback of Gwyn's theme symbolises the similarity and cyclical structure of the Dark Souls world due to it returning from the first Age of Fire and then to the last.
i appreciate references from old games and the soul of cinder fight was kinda cool, but two things. for one, the references are so many that they dont even feel special. secondly, dark souls 3 is only good if you can appreciate the references. i played dark souls 3 first.
@@HeadRedShot whoa who could’ve guessed the 3rd installation into a trilogy set later on would have call backs to the first one 😱
@@RoachXV yeah but its almost only callbacks. it barely stands on its own as its own game
I'd fight Old Demon King over Demon Firesage anyday
Not saying much there, most if not all the "Demon" bosses in Dark Souls 1 were mediocre or bad.
ODK on the whole is just an OK fight, but the one aspect of it I thought was done well compared to most other multi-phase bosses is it feels like something firing up the last remnants of its power before it extinguishes and becomes a husk. Only other boss I can think of like this in the series is Sif maybe. The very end of the fight, when its HP is at its end, after it's attempted to glow up and rain fire on you, lets it all go in one big explosion as a last-ditch effort to end you. Then it's just a big hunk of rock that can barely even move anymore. Then you just finish it off.
Just bait the booty
I actually liked the boss; my main gripe was his area. Who out of even the most ardent DS1 fans was clamoring for the return of Demon Ruins? One of the most bland and uninspired areas in the game imo.
Even with every issue with DS3 I still go back to it the most when I want to mess around in a Souls game. Something about it just clicks with me.
I’m always more likely to replay bloodborne or ds3 compared to the rest, it feels so much more responsive and well made
@@hotshotroom964 my biggest reason to even go back to DS1 was InfernoPlus' Remastest mod
I appreciate this game a lot more after Elden Ring. I found it a little too easy the first time, but I appreciate the combat flow a lot more compared to some of Elden Ring's bosses.
You know what fuck it..
IF DARK SOULS 1 WAS SUCH A GOOD GAME WHY ISNT THERE A DARK SOULS 2?????
Checkmate.
Big Brainnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!
Why isn't there a Dark Souls 3-2
@@hunterlord101 EXCEPT THERE WILL BE in like 2 or 3 months
I honestly really really love DS3, it's my favorite game in the series and yes these bosses bussin (especially those dlc ones)
Edit: Now that I think about it my favorite would probably be Demon's Souls but I still stand by what I said
Gael is definitely an amazing choice to end this series, the arena, bossfight, music, lore, everything. From just goes all out on him
Twin Princes is too fire
The maps cured my long list of ailments. I used to have the plague, leprosy, gangrene, you name it. Now I run marathons. Thanks, ZeroLenny!
this was literally my fav out of all of them, the updated controls are what did it for me
I think it had the least jank. And it's something everyone wanted in their souls games regardless of whether or not they were aware at first.
DS1's PvP was a complex meta of jank. DS2 had weird hitboxes and only slightly better netcode than DS1, but that ultimately meant that reactively poking from distance wasn't as reliable. DS3's lack of jank and reliable hitboxes means the best playstyle is to spam quick R1's from your max range, and nothing really counters that particularly well.
I think Dark Souls 3 is my favourite of the bunch, I love the other two and honestly, its so hard to chose between the three. I used to think DS2 was my least favourite by far but played through that again recently and actually realised that just isn't the case. They all have the ups and downs, mainly all ups though. DS1 map design and just the progression style and different routes you can take will always be fantastic, but it is clunky. Nothing worse than dying to something that seems to be complete bull such as a camera fuck up or weird roll or jank hitboxes, DS3 is just a much smoother experience with less of that frustration. Also atmosphere and story wise, DS3 has a much stronger place in my mind. The ringed city DLC and the way they bring the game to a close with the slave knight gale fight at the end of time, man, nothing will beat that.
> DS3 is just a much smoother experience with less of that frustration
> Nameless King
The DLC ends with two nameless nobodies fighting over nothing at the end of time itself. It's a surprisingly poetic ending, and it really encapsulates the feeling of the game, doesn't it?
Ds2 feels worse than the first game I can't believe how janky it is
@@Муня-ж7з nameless king is fair though, besides phase one with the camera issues. Plus that’s only one example. Ds1 and 2 have way more BS.
@@Муня-ж7з Skill issue. NK isn't even that hard just learn to dodge.
to me, dark souls 3 was the best to just _play._ its controls are the most fluid and responsive so the act of just holding the controller and pressing buttons to make my dude do things was the least frustrating. and the linear nature of the world meant it was uncomplicated and less stressful to play through, and thus has been the one i played the most
Ye the buttons actually respond. Unlike 1 and 2 where I get hit a single time and the game refuses to roll away
Bro what the non linearity of ds1 never confused me or was to complicated... planning my routes and mapping the world out was one of my favorite experiences in gaming.
And on later playthroughs it only improved the replayability since now that i knew the world there were tricks allowing me to do things how i wanted and even get some thinga early.
@@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa87252 yo comment but yes idrk how he gets confused. The game is honestly kind of linear. Like there are some areas that you COULD got to, but the game does a good job of telling you where you aren't supposed to be
Dark Souls 3 was one of the weirdest first-time playthroughs I've had. I found the claymore, got lucky rolling through the fire, I got beefed by the "tree of eggs" too many times, found the exile greatsword, and got lost in the woods for too long before getting gangbanged by the wolfs. Killed them finally, spent a lot of time at the cathedral, and went back to the old lady in the chair, somehow killed her exotic dancer first try, ignored the library full of candle-nerds, and cheesed the dnd team waiting for me on the rooftop. Lorian was tough at first, then it felt easier over time. And I was really happy that I kept dying to the last boss even though he seemed relativity easy because it made it feel right, and I became the coolest candle. After I beat the bosses offline, and played the whole game, I tried the dlcs on the same account in ng+ and they were satisfyingly unique and interesting. I wish I had played with someone watching though because I then also first tried the "no-name boi" and I will forever only hear "So do it again right now then" Thank you, Dark Souls 3
hey man i enjoyed your story but i would appreciate it if you didn't use words like "g*ngb*ng" thanks
@@TheAlex010 Who cares. I'm not here for you, kindly stop being so sensitive, because that's what I'D appriciate
@@TheAlex010 And I’d apréciate if you didn’t tell someone what they shouldn’t or should say Online. Their not your dad/Mom/kid or your dam student.
@@TheAlex010 h*y m*n I *nj*y*d y**r st*ry b*t I w**ld *ppr*c**t* *t *f y** d*dn't *s* w*rds l*k* "********" th*nks
@@TheAlex010 Its not even like a gang bang is a bad thing lmao.
Its not like he said gang rape. But sure, keep policing what people can and can't say on the internet like a moron
Your favorite games aren't the ones with the fewest flaws, they're the ones with the highest highs, and DS3 really delivers on that front to me and that's why I love it the most out of the trilogy.
And really, what is love if not acknowledging flaws and saying "I don't care"?
Dark Souls 3 is also the least flawed technically out of them. A really solid and consistent game throughout.
I honestly have to say that ds3 just never "clicked" the same way ds1 has for me. I can obviously tell that its an amazing game, i think i just prefer the slow and steady feeling of dark souls 1
Also the map. The map of DS1 is superior to DS3 in almost every way. Compare the Undead Settlements to each other and tell me which is superior. DS3 Anor Londo/Irithyll is a joke compared to DS1s.
@@ahmadtheIED DS3's Irythill and the Cathedral are better designed than anything DS1 had.
@@TheStraightestWhitest Trash taste, but not surprising coming from a DS3 enjoyer. You people are the casuls that are overjoyed elden ring doesn't let single players get invaded anymore, huh?
@@ahmadtheIED Well, DS1 does have the best map by far of all souls games.
Edit: okay, i just remembered some parts of the second half of the game, still, i think my point stands because of interconectivate alone
@@ahmadtheIED Good thing DS3 isn't trying to design its map like DS1. You are acting like it is trying to be open and failing rather than trying to be linear and succeeding.
Also, the DLCs are freaking epic and right on par with the Old Hunters IMO
Bloodborne and ds3 have the best dlcs of any fromsoftware games
@@igorlol278 both so true, Gael is hands down my favorite boss in the series
I'm a pretty big DS2 fan, but I will say that DS3 has better DLC's. Not as good as Bloodborne. No DS game's PvE/Story was as good as Bloodborne's...
I thought Ashes of Ariendal (Don't know if I spelled that right) was a bit too short for my taste, but the boss fight at the end made up for it. Ringed City was amazing through and through.
Ashes of ariandel was short and messy, worst DLC in any souls game. RInged city was pretty sweet though.
The fight with Gael is probably my favorite fight in the series and how smooth the rolls were really nice, but Dark Souls 1 has something special about it that makes me want to replay it more.
probably because the game is a lot slower and I appreciate that more.
Dark souls 1 has that very special place in my heart too
Slave Knight Gael was actually a perfect sendoff to the series and I will die on this hill
ds1 is a lot easier overall so it's nice to just casually jump into
@@jimjam8246 I'll be there to join you.
"Gimmick bosses"
I think the series could actually do MORE of these. Every boss doesn't need to be simply a test of your reflexes. Having to figure out a little puzzle of sorts is compelling too. I think it's just a matter of making sure these moments aren't as obvious as they often are.
I mean I don't mind "gimmick" bosses, but the gimmick should be fun, like Wolnir it amounts to hit the shiny bracelets and do a lot of damage, Yhorm it's use the weapon _in his boss room_ and kill him for free, etc.
A puzzle fight should be hard to execute or actually a brain scratcher, all Dark Souls puzzle bosses basically amount to find a weapon in the boss room, or hit the very clear weak point sadly. Zelda it is not. The gimmicks kinda just make the bosses too easy rather than challenging a different skill.
@@ArmoredSoul1 agreed, hence my last sentence.
You know, a week ago, I would have agreed with your sentiment, but I've beaten Nocturne now, and had a taste of what "more gimmick bosses" can do to someone's mental sanity.
It's not nice.
Agreed.
I mean, Demons Souls bosses were great (mostly)
@@HersgoryJigurda I never played DeS, I think the only "gimmick bosses" I can think of, is the one that's like Yhorm in that you need to get the cloud ruler, then use that to kill them, but it looked more interesting than Yhorm at least.
The other one was the dragon emperor? I think that's what its called, that falcon punches you if you beat the first boss you encounter at the start pre-Nexus. Neither one seemed too bad.
The queen of the Souls gimmick fights, the reason why I will always say that Fromsoft cannot do puzzle/gimmick fights.. is Bed of Chaos though lmfao
I always love videos that essentially boil down to that simple phrase you used at the end:
"(Insert game of choice here) absolutely shines because of its outstanding qualities in the areas I care about. Sure, the (insert bad quality here) sucks, and the (insert second bad quality here) kinda sucks. And I don't care. I still love it"
The long and short of this video is that you should spend your time doing things you enjoy. Not everyone values the same things, so not everyone will fall in love with the same things. And that's ok.
That kind of analysis is utter dogshit and I hope to god I see it's extinction in my lifetime.
I agree heavily with the build part. Magic, miracle, dark and pyromancy builds have lots of downfalls. The dmg is restricted so that it doesn't surpass melee. The cast time means less dmg over time and fewer hits. Combined with FP resource management and allotted ashen estus. Melee will always be superior, so much so that it is vital to every build.
Pure caster builds suffer greatly and bosses take less dmg to certain spells/elements. Most spells require high stats and the dmg is often times disappointing, making only certain spells the 'go-to' for players.
While the rest are ignored and laughable by the community such as the 'Way of White Corona' which is a miracle aquired in the Ashes of Ariandel DLC, in a room with two corvian knights. Even a pure faith build will only get slightly over 120 damage if maybe. It's sad to see those numbers, there's no point in wasting a slot for them.
You're thinking of Lightning Arrow. Way of White Corona is in Ashes of Ariandel, and it's not really hidden. Both do trash damage tho
Honestly though pyromancy is the only exception to this and its only downfall is the large amounts of enemies with fire resistance but then you've got dark flames and stuff to counter act those ( don't quote me on that tho I haven't played in a while )
@@blake-peace - Oh my bad, you're right, I fixed it now. I like Lighting Arrow for PvP since you can hold it and cause players to panic roll. For PvE not so much.
i love how no one mentions the absolute abomination of 'bows' in darksouls 3.. like.. they're so incredibly fking useless..
@@garbageguy2599 - I found that enemies especially at the beginning of the game are weak to fire. For dark spells, most enemies I found have decent resistance towards dark. So I get moderate damage out of dark spells with rings equipped.
I found DS3's biggest issue was that
I felt like it was trying to keep pace with bloodborne
like it tried to be faster
but then punishes that speed cause its darksouls
and some bosses like the soul of cinder and nameless king and bootleg Maria just infuriate me
with badly handled phases and often bullshit attacks
that said it is still a great game
SoC and Namless King aren't even that fast, but I agree Maria fucking zooms around way too fast for a souls game
I dont really get what annoyes you about those fights, every attack can be consistantly avoided and punished, with maybe the exeption of friede, but even she can be hit after all her moves if you dodge early enough I think. I dont really get what you dont get about nameless king, all of his attacks are very slow
THIS. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'VE THOUGHT
@@gottdashochstewesen4902 What I hate about nameless king is the storm king
same for SOC and his phases,
1 boss who gets more then 1 hp bar annoys the hell out of me
especially as in all situations they change how you fight them
so you gotta get through often boring and sloggy first phases
to reach the acctualy chanlanging phase
and it fucks with muscle memory
and over all just wastes time
same goes for bootleg Maria
boring first phase
annoying second phase
fun 3rd phase but ruined by the slog before it
because of maria ive never been able to do Gael or Midir (and i know you can skip to the dreg heap but ive got a personal rule about doing story important bosses in order)
@@jebush1733 its not the speed
its the boring and sloggy first phases
storm king is such a boring fight
and soc first phase is just annoying
same goses for bootleg Maria
boring first phase
annoying second phase
fun third phase but its ruined by the first two
Honestly, the big issue for me is that builds thing. Thank goodness we have mods to re-vamp magic, because it hurt how bad magic builds felt in DS3 when I tried them out. Otherwise, its probably my favourite game, of all time.
Magic was too unbalanced in DS1. It was literally the easy mode of Dark Souls for a reason. DS3 might have gone too far, but Magic needed to be nerfed when compared to what it was in DS1.
Bad in terms of variety and options or in terms of power?
@@damonboughton5177 I'd say mostly power, but the variety could be wider, too.
@@damonboughton5177 Discount Destructo Disk. Or as you might better know it, Way of White Crescent.
@@salamanda550 God damn, magic builds were even stronger in DS1? I haven't got around to trying it out on DS1 but I tried one out on DS3 and found the game considerably easier than using melee, DS1 magic must be insanely stronk
Edit: I do agree that it could have had better variety, spamming HSA and HGSA for a majority of the playthrough did get a little tedious
I love the point of how the basic combat can actually be intriguing. That’s honestly some of my favorite combat in the game and it’s glad to see someone else enjoys the simplicity. Maybe we just wanna grill for God’s sake? 🤷♂️
If this makes sense, it felt like the rings in dark souls 3 were designed to supplement mediocre stats rather than augment okay stats, which is frustrating.
My feeling is more that rings are mostly there to slightly exacerbate already high stats... Most of them are % based. The most fun rings are the stat rings (which also tend to be the twink rings) because it lets you change your build by quickly hitting min stats to do something.
Dark Souls 3 was my first souls experience and I love it dearly. I realize its flaws but I don’t have a problem with the fact that it is more linear or that it borrows a ton from the previous titles. It introduced me this great series and I can go back and enjoy it any time.
Really? Whenever I return to DS3 it's like an abusive relationship. I'm mostly miserable, and I just try to grind out the stupid character idea I had and get it over with.
DS1 and 2 are always fresh to return to because I can actually mix up my build and play-through. DS1 also just has the best story and environments, and DS2 is pretty silly but also really varied!
Monsieur Dorgat I don’t stress myself over a build, I have a general idea and build as I go. It’s more fun that way to me.
@@SergeantChewie Then you don't get to do more fun or unique stuff!
You could at least understand why I might want to plan out a build capable of a unique playstyle to make the play through more interesting?
My most recent idea, for instance, was primarily focusing on Ashen Estus with a Faith build, since miracle healing is more flask efficient than normal estus and an interesting way to complete the game. I'd want to make sure I had a plan to get and use weapons and pick a starting class that enable that style.
Monsieur Dorgat I 100% agree no worries. I enjoy watching people make their builds and it can certainly be discouraging when you’re looking for a perfect weapon that’s fun and fits your build but it doesn’t exist or is too late game. Your ashen estus flask idea is really cool, I’d honestly consider doing it myself. When I play I usually build it as I go because if I plan too much I never find what I’m looking for.
@@SergeantChewie The ashen estus thing is basically just any miracle/pyromancy build - you have like two normal estus for emergencies but otherwise use Ashen and miracles to heal if you finish a battle without health.
I think I approach open world RPG's a little more like you approach Dark Souls, where I expect and want to be surprised by the variety. Dark Souls games are small and linear enough I don't expect those kinds of surprises for natural RP, so I stick to planning unique builds instead.
“it's too nostalgic”
*Gwyndolin horribly dying in the background*
I feel as though each game each have their own specific preferences and ideas that clearly separate them for a player and which they feel like playing. There’s also a very amazing video that talks about DS3 called “DS3 is thinking of ending things” and it goes over how the references are used as a story beat even more than you may realize and how it affects the overall story of the game I’d recommend you watch it if you haven’t cause it can give you a whole new idea on why these references are so much more than simple nostalgia
I will once again recommend the video essay “Dark Souls 3 is Thinking of Ending Things” as I did in the initial community post. It made me appreciate Dark Souls 3’s story and tone even more than I already did.
I +1 that because that essay slaps
Pancakes 🥞
I'll check it out after this vid
Jacob Geller is such a good video essay creator.
i love DS3 so much
ive played through it so many times with so many friends its like my go to relax game now
Same here, i just run through it solo to just enjoy myself
@@royalenigma434 me too
Oh wow, Lenny. Thos-those maps made the whole video. Didn't fucking agree with anything till you put the maps on screen.
Fuckin' loved it!
I think being on the rails in DS3 might be why people love it as well. The story progresses in a very natural format. You arent having to seek it to find out wtf is going on. The game takes you through the progression. Even not playing DS1 you would feel like the game tells you the most of it. There are easter eggs for the loyalists, and nods to the past, but that isnt a bad thing. Continuity is nice.
I just thought of something. You can explain the fast travel in 3 with a bit of the lore. The Ashen Ones' are the ash of those who were elected to link the flame before. So it's possible that the Lord vessels ability passes along as well. And it's also ambiguous whether each Ashen One is composed of a single individual's ash or a composite of many cremations, mirroring the soul of cinder.
I loved all the call backs to ds1 because it reminded me of when my friends would play online with me, where by the time I played ds3 everyone is too busy with their own schedules to actually do any of that together or we fell out of touch over time and it made it feel lonely but really helped me immerse in the world. I played ds3 for the fashion souls part as well which was nice. I was sad I couldn’t do a mage build or faith, ended up with quality build. Never done a faith build and enjoyed a glass cannon run in ds1. My favorite part of this video was your point at the end of like just enjoy what you do in your free time. Like you said there is no real objective stance it’s all subjective and I really liked hearing what you liked and didn’t like so I could compare it with my own and feel like I’m having a conversation with an old buddy about dark souls. Thanks Lenny! Looking forward to whatever you do next
In DS1 gaining the ability to warp gave me a feeling of accomplishment, which was especially true on my first play of the game way back when, after clawing my way all the way through to O&S. It actually annoys me that others don't like DS1 purely because you can't warp from the get-go.
Warps devalue world building and exploration. Without warps you celebrate every shortcut, make hard decisions where to rest..
@@noop9k I like the way DS1 and DS3 handle it. DS1 is much more open ended so it gives you a chance to explore and appreciate the world when you don't have warps right away, but no warps in DS3 would just be repetitive because of how linear it is.
@@ThrowAway_462 ds3 wasn’t built for world exploration in mind, for sure. Can’t say it was entirely intentional either I think FromSoft was running out of time (they wanted to implement interconnectivity in between many zones, I think they tried with Irithyll and Carthus Catacombs)
Some people like actually playing the game and not pointlessly backtracking because said game holds back the ability to warp for no reason.
@@marakrofitcac3425 Backtracking in DS1 is far from pointless, and shortcuts are there.
Literally no one I’ve seen hates this game unless they’re being “the old school ones are better” type people but other than that actual fans love this game.
Nothing to love about Cash Grab 3.
it's probably my least favourite only because of it's very weak start. The first half of the game is very dull aside from abyss watchers. It's similar to Dark souls 2 where it picks up hugely in the endgame, but at least in Ds2 you have some options at the start. Ds3 is just too linear, too safe.
Edit: I do appreciate how it capped off the series tho and the DLC is a 10/10.
@@incius8341 Really? I loved high wall of lothric, it's the undead burg of DS3 but more action packed and more visually interesting, I think it's a great starting area with enough side paths but not too long, the boss is also decent, it's an actual fight you gotta fight and dodge, unlike the Taurus demon, who's basically gonna be impossible for new players because you can't go around him, the boss "area" is thin bridge and you can only dodge backwards, and once you get cornered it's over, but once you realize that you can kill him with 1.5 plunging attacks by climbing the ladder the boss becomes piss easy. The next 2 areas are a bit weak, but Cathedral of the deep is criminally underrated, it's one of the best designed areas in the entire game, solely because you use 1 bonfire for most of it while unlocking shortcuts after shortcuts, I think there are 3 in total, the cathedral itself is visually impressive and so large to the point that it gives you a megalophobia, the boss is lame though.
@@user-ly2ll5od1r I agree with you about the cathedral it's my favourite area in the base game, I only wish other areas were similarly inspired. Anyway, I stick by what I said. The fact you had 3x more to say about Taurus demon than Vordt is what I meant. Iudex gundyr is better than half the bosses after it.
Also, highwall ain't bad, fromsoft is fromsoft after all but it is no undead burg. UB was physically connected to firelink, darkroot basin, undead parish and lower undead burg. Highwall connects to an endgame area that deadends until you kill yhorm and aldritch and couldn't be bothered to do more than warp between it's previous and next location. Which is funny to criticize cause it actually has more options than the rest of the game.
@@incius8341 Oh yes, the level design in DS1 is way better, more interconnected and probably peak dark souls, honestly - peak fromsoft the moment where you kick down the ladder or go down the elevator to firelink shrine are unironically one the coolest moments I've experienced in gaming, the fact that these moments can compare to the reveal of Anor Londo really says something about the importance of level design and how much it can add to the overall game, I'm lucky that I experienced this fresh without getting spoiled, I played up the gargoyles on xbox360 when it just came out, I was a stupid child who didn't know what I was getting into amd I still loved it, I just couldn't push through the challange of beating the gargoyles, especially with that boss run; I just gave up, I tried a few times to play it later but just couldn't get into it, i lost peatience and started using cheats, after beating the gaping dragon i just dropped the game writting it off as "not for me" also I felt guilty for playing unfair with cheats, and I only did finish it 6-7 years later on pc with the remaster, it's still my favourite fromsoft game and playing it around christmas time pretty much imprinted the whole experience into my brain to the point where I now have a tradition to replay DS1 around christmas time every year. I loved DS1, I was so confused as to why I only started loving it at the 4/5th attempt, so logically I immediatelly hopped on DS2 and I had a miserable time, I'm not gonna go into detail as to why since many people have explained in better detail why, maybe it's the lack of Myazaki, maybe it's the fact that it was made by a B-team interns while the A-team was making bloodborne, maybe it's both, maybe it's awful slow, clunky and borderline unbalanced gameplay, but I think it's the combination of all 3, a trinity/trifecta of fatal flaws of DS2, the way combat is designed is 1 problem, but I think the whole vibe was off, like it's a bad bootleg rip-off of dark souls by another studio and not real sequel, then after I beat it after hours of suffering, I thought DS1 was just this one time masterpiece, like a lighning in a bottle, something that will never be replicated again then I tried bloodborne and just from the intro alone I was so relieved, so happy and excited that maybe, just maybe dark souls 2 was some kind of a bad joke, like spoiled, rotten *Golden delicious* apple in a basket full of amazing *granny smith* apples, and I was right, it's hard to explain but there's a reason why every game that tried to replicate this genre, like The Surge or Lords of the fallen are absolutely garbage, I'm too lazy articulate the reasons but it's obvious, maybe it's the fact that I absolutely loathed DS2 which made me look at DS3 as better than it is, it probably did, but I still replayed it twice pretty recently as well, it's a great feeling to be able to roll and atack faster after DS3, the character actually drinks the estus flask quickly in the heat of a battle, and not comically slow like in DS2, the immediate boss that's not too challanging but not too easy either with a second phase too open boss area, great art design, despite it being mostly grey, it was already LEAGUES better than DS2, it was a joy seeing "firelink shrine" letters on my screen again, just like every other "reference", it didn't bother me, it felt like a sequel, not a bootleg rip off which feel like it takes place in a different world altogether, the faster combat was also really fun, I am rambling too much, but I think one of the main reasons I like DS3 so much is probably because I hated DS2 so much and the bar was set so low It was basically impossible to get worse. Yes Ds3 is linear, yes it has a couple bad bosses,so what? When DS2 had like 35 of them which were even worse than the bad ones in DS3, I disagree that DS2 picks up in the end game, I don't even remember it, All I remember is that the final boss can be beated by just standing right next to it because it's attacks can't reach you there. I get why some people like DS2, they like it for the exact reasons that I don't, while i do come across as very agressive and negative about DS2, I do understand why and how people can enjoy it, but I just couldn't. I think I rambled enough and you get my point, I'm too lazy to go on.
Honestly yeah, it is my least favorite of the series. Not because of the mechanics, gameplay-wise it's the best one by far, but because it's just a nostalgia trip from one end to the other. It's all "hey remember this from Dark Souls 1? You remember Anor Londo right? Siegmeyer, you guys like him right? Hey, what about Artorias, you remember Artorias don't you?"
Honestly this kills replayability. I finished the previous 2 games 3 times each, DS3 I couldn't bring myself to finish it a second time.
Idk how something like references from previous games make you not want to replay a game but you do you
This reason is stupid, tyvm
You just didn't get the point of what miyazaki was doing. All the references to DS1 and the lore itself tell you that the world is rotting and falling apart if you just repeat it over and over. It was the answer to fans demanding another Dark Souls. Fromsoftware didn't want to do the Assassin's Creed move and bring basically the same game every 6 months, so they wrapped it up in a really epic way and brought stories that weren't finished in part 1 to a tragic end. The whole story of the painted world represents letting go to create something different aswell.
@@Yul_B_Awright oh I perfectly get the "cyclical nature" theme of the game. Doesn't mean it's good design when you just bloat it with references and little else.
For me its the opposite. I have 6 times the hours on ds3 compared to ds1. Its because in ds1 there just wasnt that many bosses that i loved so much i wanna fight them again and the early game was a slog due to no fast travel. While ds3 has a butt load of fantastic bosses. Nameless King, SoC, Twin Princes, Pontiff Sulyvahn, Champion Gundyr, Dragonslayer Armor, Friede, Demon Prince, Midir, and Gael are all bosses i looked forward to fight whenever i started a new playthrough. Ds1 just lacks that with the exception of Londo Duo, Artorias, Manus, Kalameet, and Gwyn.
Ds3 is my favorite because exactly what you’re talking about. Its the smoothest. Its the funnest pve. And the endgame/dlc bosses blow any other game’s out of the water. I agree that trudging through the in between bits gets really old. But idk, the gameplay makes it worth it. If I got stranded on an island and could only bring one game, it’d be ds3.
Try Bloodborne. It is DS3 but done right.
@@MinoMadness assuming they didn't play bloodborne
@@MinoMadness if it releases on pc I will, imagine buying a playstation lmao
@@MinoMadness I have. I still prefer ds3. Tbh I thought bloodborne was great but think its a little over hyped. Just my opinion.
@@MinoMadness overrated game
To be honest if I had to take a guess at the double bonfire, I would assume the maps/areas are made in sections and then bolted together later. We've seen similar bolting in Dark soul's 2 legendary elevator to the volcano. I don't know if that's exactly how it happened, but its what I would assume.
I think the issues with DS2's world are more the result of the game's very troubled development, rather than being the result of incompetence like people such as MauLer would have you believe. The DS2 we got in the end is a far cry from the DS2 they wanted to give us.
DS2 is still a vastly superior game in spite of its development hell though, which makes you wonder where DS3 went so wrong with its gameplay and world.
@@boyishdude1234 Real talk bro, I'm not arguing over what game is better, I'm giving a shot in the dark as to why one bonfire is about eighty feet from another bonfire.
soulsgames feels like they do a arena/stage building method, you build the stage first, link it later. Demon souls had an easier time doing this as it uses teleport mechanics, you could pretty much sum it up like a mario game, Area 1 stage 1, etc etc.
Then they went semi-open world, but may have still maintained some of their stage building methods, daytime at the shrine/firelink, night time in the forest, dawn/dusk in anor londo, they point out to being separate stages/arenas that were linked after the fact, they just happened to mesh together well, may have been a fluke or intentional design, dunno, wasn't in the dev room. Don't care, this is all theory.
I don't know who mauler is, and the critique and which game is better has nothing to do with the why one bonfire is eighty feet away from another bonfire. Leave the thread if you can't get on point as to why one bonfire is eighty feet from another bonfire.
Don't forget the fact that we get a bonfire for every boss defeated, which feels goddamn stupid 80% of the time because they are unnecessary. The only really useful boss bonfires I'd say are those from the Dancer and Pontiff, because they lead directly to an area rather than an introductory bonfire for said area. The double bonfire is just that boss bonfire idea pushed to its worst extreme
@@arutemisemtrai9769 What in the blue fuck are you even talking about? Did you even have an actual point..? That was some serious stream of consciousness.
@@boyishdude1234 13:40 is what I was responding to, the specific topic of the bonfires. Why? Because I wanted to know about them. You came in all "DKS2 HHHHHHHHRRHHHHHHHH" and bro, I just wanted to know about the bonfires.
Or rather, to get into the specifics, this is a discussion about development, not which is better. This could be two square pegs trying to fuck a circle for all I care. I want to know the development.
ds2: Everyone will go hollow, it's inescapable, all will be forgotten, hardly anything remains from the age of the gods.
ds3: Yeah all of ds1 is just kinda there. Remember Anor Londo, all these weapons, all those armor sets, this npc, that area, etc
This was an insightful review; and, ironically, it helped me realize why I like Dark Souls 2 the best: I care about the levels, build variety, and weapon variety more than I care about the bosses. I've said before to folks that I like Dark Souls 2 because while it definitely has a lot of flaws, I always felt like it had a lot of heart and did a lot of unusual and interesting things. That being said, I still really like 1 and 3; it's just that 2 is the one I most enjoy going back to, until a FAST AS FUCK, BOY katana knight knocks me out of stepping through the fog wall to Smelter Demon for the sixth time.
3 has more areas I dread going to, like the back half of Irithyll, the entirety of Demon Ruins, and honestly, Undead Settlement. 1 is solid, but doesn't quite keep my attention as well, and I'm not entirely sure why.
it's treason then.
level design Dark souls 2??? gtfo. the only good levels in DS2 are the DLC levels
I shed a tear when the DS3 Anal Rodeo archers didn't yeet me off the buttresses.
@@falaflani4831 Fr i've played souls clones with better level design than 2
The reason why You like dark souls 2 better is because you're attracted to horrible games. People don't like 3 because it was the easiest one, But in reality it's considered that 2 is the worst even by its own community. And then you want to talk about builds where you can only be a Sorcerer, heavy weapons, advanced weapons, or archery compared to other games That is embarrassing I see more customization in a Mario kart game.
Having played all three main line series games at roughly the same time. Dark Souls 3 is the best in my opinion. Best Music, best bosses in the series, best combat and speed, it all just feels more consistently good. Yes it's the most linear, but I think that plays to it's advantage as the difficulty is easier to balance, there comes a point in Dark Souls 1 and 2 where you can essentially just steam roll the entire game, either by killing every enemy in 1 hit, or just melting/tanking bosses. Dark Souls 3 never has that problem I feel like, you constantly need to stay on your feet and never get too cocky as you progress forward. Not to mention Gael is my favorite boss in any game ever. Then again, I like DS2 over DS1. So maybe I should just be locked in an insane asylum.
3 is definitely the worst in my opinion but it is still a good game.
@@harrymason4300 I thought I was alone 😆 but in all seriousness, I can find enjoyment in 3 but it's definitely the weakest entry IMO.
@@harrymason4300 ds2 is the worst *fact*
@@master-d2776 nah at least Ds2 had a cool non-linear map you could explore. In Ds3 you just walk in a straight line until you beat the game.
@@master-d2776 Sounds like the cry of someone that didn't level ADP
The one thing I cannot forgive DS3 for is the removal of poise, because the thing that initially drew me to DS1 was the option to play a slower, defensive style. Rather than just constantly testing my reflexes, like many games in the broader genre, it allowed me to be slow and methodical (while still having the other option). But I felt DS3 kinda forced its playstyle on me instead of giving me options to choose from. Even my Str build felt fast and nimble. If I wanted to be a ninja-high-on-caffeine Dex build I could just play Bloodborne or any spectacle fighter or a million other things.
Without the slow, weighty, tactical combat, Dark Souls just isn't Dark Souls for me.
Poise is for hyperarmoring through attacks, and nothing about that says "methodical", it says "berserk". Use a shield. Time your blocks, back steps, parries, thrusts, and slashes. Alternate between light and heavy attacks as needed. DS3 has some of the best methodical gameplay, because you can't just power through incoming attacks. Poise is for fighting games. Dark Souls is an adventure.
Would it have been so hard to basically make it so poise was functionally disabled in PvP, but remained enabled for PvE?
And don't forget that in DS3 they also removed the ability to upgrade your armor, so you can't improve the defensive parameters of the armor you want to use, and most armor barely offers any extra defense anyway.
...Not to also mention that the defense calculations are broken for physical elements, so only physical defense matters, and increasing your defenses against slash, thrust and whatever the third one is offers literally no returns compared to just increasing physical defense.
God DS3 is such a bad RPG.
@@chrismanuel9768 You can't power through attacks... BUT THE ENEMIES SURE CAN! Okay, not regular ones, but pretty much any mob that is supposed to be a threat (otherwise you could just beat them to death with a fast weapon like the scrubs).
And parrying just goes back to the Dex problem, I can't be arsed to learn every single enemy's parry window and then react perfectly to it. No, you can't just guess them with how finicky animations and hitboxes are. I loved medium shields in DS1, 3 made them nearly useless for everything besides parrying since rolling is so OP in comparison. Bloodborne was honest at least and just removed shields.
PS: If the devs couldn't even be bothered to give something its own button, then it was not sufficiently important to be integral to one of the (supposedly) main playstyles. That or From just never figured out how to implement a proper control scheme. Considering jumping in DS1, it might have been the latter.
@@andreaslinder8978 what can be aggravating with some mobs even tho I understand why they would do that from a game design perspective is them having similar stun limit as players, some don't even take one hit before acting again and it can feel bad, especially against big shield enemies
I don't understand people who complain about "references". This is a sequel to DS1, that's the point.
I do feel that 3 is probably the best of the trilogy, despite being my least favorite.
Besides all of that's been said in the video, what really grates on me is the rate of ambushes and setpieces. At times it feels like it has ADD and is terrified that you won't feel engaged every two steps.
Going through the Cathedral of the Deep can feel like one continuous, hour-long ambush.
Walk into a clearing, ambush. Walk through a door, ambush. Walk away after grabbing loot, ambush. Take too long dealing with an ambush, delayed secondary ambush.
When the combat is so monotone it can become less of a gauntlet and more of a slog, especially on replays when you know it's coming and you're just trying to do your progress checklist.
Ok yeah can't believe I didnt include this.. yea a lot of ambushes..
Dude, I feel the shit out of this.
I'd only completed the game one time, but earlier this week I said "Y'know what? I'ma get 100% of the achievements for DS3 before Elden Ring comes out."
So I began my second ever playthrough and OH MAN. Shit's just a chore. Less so once I pushed through the first couple hours and got into some territory I couldn't remember quite as well, but even then it's kinda predictable and samey.
Feels like High Wall and the bits just after are definitely the the biggest perpetrators of this tho. Which makes a new playthrough kinda offputting imo.
I still like the game, ofc, otherwise I wouldn't be doing the achievements thing, but I totally get why it's your least favourite.
The cathedral is 100% the worst area in ds3 for me. It always feels like a rush to get through it so that I can get to Irithyll
@@garbageguy2599 road of sacrifices gives me pain
Not gonna lie, combat has always been pretty R1 heavy throughout the series. I found myself using R2 more in 3 because you could charge it. Weapon arts have use in a pinch.
Linearity doesn’t bother me too much in 3 because a lot of the connecting areas in 1 were underutilized or downright missable during a casual playthrough without a guide. It’s cool realizing Ash Lake, the Painted World, and the return to the Asylum are things you can do, but Ash Lake has no boss fight and very little beyond a second hydra and the dragon covenant. The painted world is legitimately a test area and if you’re under leveled you’re in for a really bad time while stuck there. And the stray demon is a shit boss.
Darkroot garden and basin have cool things that were better utilized in Oolacile.
PvP in Dark Souls 1 is pretty bad with constant backstab fishing and the overly generous parry frames. Remaster also fixed the egregious issue of being stomped in the undead burg by twink builds during invasions.
And referencing dark souls 1 helped build the idea that the world really was folding in on itself. The Kiln of the First Flame in this game shows this literally. Plus like you said it’s enjoyable to see old stuff come back into play if you liked DS1. I honestly believe DS3 has a great narrative, but it is definitely a more direct sequel and it was made to be that swan song that celebrates the series. Being referential isn’t bad.
Excellent bosses, cool levels, and a great second half of the game where Dark Souls 1 and 2 both *really* suffered. Plus some really standout optional areas in the demon ruins and archdragon peak that are hinted at through dialogue and NPC quests.
Just a good game.
That's a really interesting take on parry frames. I never used parry shields much in DS1 because the connections were usually so bad that I could land unintentional backstabs almost every fight and oneshot w/hornet ring. Unless they updated 3 later on, I remember the parrying being almost laughably easy to the point you could get away with outright mashing L2 in certain situations. I can't remember a single instance where I *didn't* either oneshot the enemy or get oneshot myself as long as hornet ring was in effect.
Then again, I never went crazy with PvP guides and optimized builds, mainly stuck to the fashion souls mentality. 2h R2s all the way, lol. Slow as shit, but satisfying to land.
@@TX_LoveGame
In 1 you pretty much start parrying at the beginning of the animation, you just had to line it up with your enemy's swings. And yeah backstabs were super easy and still are.
In 3 they added starting frames and finishing frames to parries with an active frames window in between. And it was different depending on what shield type you were using (with caestus and the buckler having the most parry frames). So you had to match those frames with an enemy swing with several different weapons. It made parrying somewhat harder to learn, but it could be done effectively by an experienced player.
Soul of Cinder having a Gwyn phase as is final phase including the music is just perfect though. The boss is cycling through all the people that linked the first flame until there is only one left which is of course the one who started the age of Fire to begin with. There couldn't have been a better boss to close out the trilogy.
It feels a lot better than the random black Ornstein from DS2 atleast.^^
Agree. Anor Londo was maybe a bit much. But the final fight was amazing
I'm really conflicted on the Gwyn thing. It IS really thematically cool and it all makes sense, but a little, cynical part of me just sees sort of 'remember this?' nostalgia bait to it.
@@cheesi Nah honestly couldn't have been done better.
Having a bit of fanservice is not bad. And Fromsoft Always had recuring elements in their games (Moonlight and Pat being prime exemples).
The whole Final Fantasy franchise has a shit tone of it.
And there's also Deltarune, Elder Scrolls, Shin Megami tensei... And many more !
Having call backs is neither rare or bad for non-direct sequels. It helps you feel like they're all part off the same thing.
And even if Anor Londo and Andre were a bit much the rest was fine. And soul of cinder especially is perfect, remembering the start of a journey is often the best way to appreciate it's end. And it makes even more sens with the theme of endless cycles in Dark souls
@@genbeuden2114 Yeah I disagree with pretty much nothing there, like I said I completely see how cool it is. I juust can't help feeling that way a little :p
I've mentioned before in the bloodborne video that my biggest gripe is how armor does jack all, and how at all points in the game you're one or two shot by any given boss, which doesn't really feel that fair when you're just arbitrarily sent back to square 1 from a singular mistake. I even took the time when I was going against nameless king (last boss I had to fight in the game since I found him after everything) and I just got so frustrated that I took a few hours to level up to be able to equip havel's complete armor set to test exactly how much damage a single hit can do armored vs unarmored because I wanted to see if it did literally nothing.
My findings were that with complete havel garb vs unarmored is that havel garb let me heal back to full with one estus swig and unarmored I barely just didn't fill hp back to max, being about 95% hp instead. Armor. Is negligible. I mean, I already heard how poise was bugged and didn't work, but hoo boy, armor value being replaced with a flawed reduction system? That really didn't set well with me.
I also found a lot of enemies in the game that my melee attacks just weren't coming out fast enough to hit enemies without also being hit myself, which made me go more into a pyromancy build which made the game far more of a breeze since I'm not needing to worry about tanking the hits (an impossible feat) to deal the damage with melee, but instead I could keep at a distance and time when to dodge vs when to attack and it made the game just a far more managable and enjoyable experience. I also did experimenting with a lot of other builds as I went along, trying out faith (it's crap), plain magic (not as crap), but ultimately I felt like pyromancy was *the* way to go as it just hit everything hard, especially if you juggle using dark pyromancy as well, making fire-based bosses a cinch. Darkeater Midir was the only boss that was a real slog, and that's honestly when I delved into faith because "Dragons are weak to lightening" but hooboy that weakness ain't good if it takes double damage and the damage being dealt is 2 before doubling. I'll take my halved 500 damage, thanks.
In the end, I found the game is pretty solid with those gaping flaws aside. I felt like there was no need for me to try a new build on a new playthrough, unlike all other souls games, as I basically *did* it all my first time. Only thing I can think of I'd try is a luck-build with hollow equipment. But that's more of a funky modifier than it is a new way of playing through the game in the sense of use of tools at your disposal. I know you're going to think of me weird for ranking the souls games like this, but I feel that DS1 is an A rank game, DS2 is B, and DS3, bloodborne, and Demon Souls are all C. Which is to say that they're all good in their own rights, but DS1 is just...too good. And DS2 had a lot of good ideas, but wasn't anywhere near as good as DS1, and the other three just had gaping flaws that bring them down. Demon Souls I feel a little bad about putting it as C, but it really is just a far more archaic DS1 in the end of the day. I still like 'em all though, and Demon Souls *is* what got me into the series.
I haven't played Elden Ring yet, though, so we'll see what that's like when I do. (I plan on trying to pick it up during steam Christmas sale)
"There are too many gimmick bosses"
Funny, here I was thinking there were way too many extremely samey fights between bosses who hold their attack just a second longer.
That's what most bosses have been doing since Artorias of the Abyss. It's not neccesarily a problem, and it isn't evidence for the bosses being samey. You don't fight the Dancer in the same way as Pontiff, and those two are probably the best example of samey bosses.
@@leadfaun Ah but you do fight them the same way- you hit the dodge button at the right time. That's the fight. That's all of these fights. You just said so yourself. There's no interesting environment to fight them in, no disadvantage you have to overcome, no weak point you can go for to reward risky play, no way to turn the arena against them, nothing. In a game with better, more developed combat, like Devil May Cry, that would be fun! But this isn't Devil May Cry, it's a very rudimentary combat system in what was originally a game series that rewarded you for being observant in a holistic fashion, like an adventurer actually would. You can mix up the attack patterns all you want, but they'll still feel like the same fight.
@@noriringtail7428 They all have things that make them unique dancer you have to worry about timing them perfectly the song itself is a clue as to the rhythim of her attacks in pontif its pretty random and hard to react and at end faze you have to deal with a clone meaing to on one so you chose go for the clone or go for pontif Both decisons have advantages and disadvantages going for pontif will end the fight but the clone will keep attacking making it so you have to keep doging the clone while also doging pontif.Another example is the twin princes with teleporting.It may be a simple game yes but its what it does with that simpicity is what makes it special and I would take it over so mindless mess like dmc.
@@knucklessonic1067 Try again with some punctuation bud.
@@noriringtail7428 you hit the dodge button at the right time for all the bosses in the series. We aren’t talking about DS3 compared to other games, we’re talking about DS3 compared to other DS games. Otherwise this isn’t a point I disagree with.
Dancer does have a weak point, and Pontiff can be parried. So no, you’re wrong about that specific point.
Whether they feel the same is entirely subjective. They are fought differently regardless.
I've played every souls game except for Demons Souls (getting a PS5 for Christmas so it's on my list)
And I gotta say Dark Souls 3 is my personal fav besides Bloodborne..
So I can't say I hate it at all. I love it!
Edit: watched the whole video and I have to say I fully agree with just about everything Lenny said. He took all the words right out of my mouth.
Also the double bonfire was genuinely the most ambitious crossover since the marvel cinematic history. Pretty spicy.
Glad I didn't get a PS5 until a year later, Demon's Souls remake is a good remake but the game itself is my second to least favorite in front of Dark Souls 2.
@@D1ab0lical PS5 actually has games now, so that was probably a good call, yeah.
@@eclecticspaghetti Yea. It's got a few. Mostly getting a PS5 so newer games don't make my PS4 sound like a get engine.
*Cough* Ghost of Tsushima *cough*
@@FrankByDaylight playing that on my ps4 pro made my ears almost blow out. on ps5 tho it's so good. RDR2 on ps4 was the loudest thing, which was odd since on my xbox it was ok.
As much as I played DS2 the first, and in "Consequence" its my favorite. Dark souls 3 isn't a bad game.
I could be wrong but I think many people look to the first game, and wish the sequels wouldn't be different. But then they're not really new games, just reskinned copies. Also what the fuck, I see people in the comment sections deadass going "Lmao you like DS2? Go check your brain to see you're alright" Not that exact quote but you get the point.
Its just a game guys (I shouldn't have typed that) Dark souls 2 is not the devil, its actually pretty enjoyable. And it did do some things well, admitting the game you hate did some things properly will not make you spontaneously combust. E
Dark Souls 2 isnt garbage, but it is the worst game from soft souls game by far
@@BoshBargnani i couldnt finish ds3 🤷🏼♂️. I was a dark souls head and i couldnt believe that i had no desire to play it.
Its below 2 in my list for sure.
No it didnt have to be an exact copy pf ds1 but i had hoped the sequels would do as good a job or better, taking what ds1 did so well and expanding on it.
Well, I had written a very long comment that I accidentally deleted. So to summarize:
I'm somewhat enjoying DS3, But I don't think its better than 2 either. (Can't say if 1 is the best or not because I haven't been able to play it yet.)
Most of my enjoyment from ds3 comes from the weapon art mechanic and the new graphics, even though I believe DS2 Had some amazing scenery. I do think I overreacted a bit in my first comment though, DS2's combat is definitely not for everyone, I enjoy it very much though.
@@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725 really, I finished all of them. Dark souls 2 is by far the worst.
I love how people say magic is bad, and then here I am killing pontiff midir freide and other tough bosses in under 3 tries…
I always thought of DS 3 as a direct sequel to DS 1 so all the references never bothered me because I just assumed the same world would have the same things in it. Having Andre at Firelink was a bit much though.
Wow Lenny those maps made the whole video! I didn't agree with anything until you put the fockin maps on the screen! Fockin loved it!
DS3's a pretty good game, and I've put a couple hundred hours in. It's fine to concede it's issues. I like the levels a lot, actually, in contrast to what you started on at the end that they're too linear. There's a couple stinkers, sure, like the profane capital, but it honestly has some great levels. Cathedral of the Deep is pretty damn great, the undead town is pretty great, Anor Londo is handled well, and even the shitshow in smoldering lake actually has some good design ideas where you have multiple ways to approach it by either running past the wurm or going down the hole made by the ballista. But, the world design *is* very linear. There's really only one logical path through most of the game, and the only decisions are when to do the lake(if at all), or when to do archdragon peak(if at all).
On a related note, build variety I think is actually better than you stated. But, only for when you're actually a stacked out, final build. I did a faith build the first time I played the game, and got the same lame squeaky noise when I found lightning spear. Year or two later after the dlc's had dropped, I did a faith build, got myself to level like 120+ or whatever, with 60 faith, and you know what? Faith kicks ass when you've got the 60 faith! I realized it's because they locked the actually useful spellcasting behind faith/int levels of 50 to 60, along with basically waiting for the "upgraded" versions of spells like getting great lightning spear or sunlight spear, along with getting actually good weapons/spellcasting focuses, *along* with having enough MP to actually use your spellcasting without going OOM immediately. Int builds have similar issues. The end game build is great. But, you have to get there, which means if you're doing a fresh run, you're doing the same thing you've done a million times. Get a raw longsword, silver eagle or whatever your preferred basic shield is, chew through the game until can either farm silver knights in Anor Londo or beat The Dancer and farm the one knight next to the bonfire after her. So you're probably waiting for half to 2/3 of the game to "unlock" your build while basic melee/bleed builds don't need to do anything of the sort and can happily mow through the game as is.
Also, my personal beef with the game, more than anything else - after the absolute bastard motherfuckers of Mauldron the Assassin and Jester Thomas were unleashed in DS2's dlc's, I was super disappointed that npc red phantom invasions in DS3 are extremely vanilla. They have no tricks up their sleeve, they don't use the environment to their advantage, they don't BM you with emotes.
Hey, I think that is a lineal game. But the areas alone, i mean particullary have a really nice design. Is like a circle, very well handleded.
cathedral is the worst area in the game, mostly due to how buggy the patches/sieg quests are, but also because the area is just shit. pre cathedral area is just a bunch of respawning maggot zombies from the dungeon with a few shitty items sitting around. the actual cathedral is a linear trek through a boring area with shitty enemies, and ds3's version of the covetous demon.
I hate when people talk about how "har har DS3 has too much DS 1 fanservice cuz they reference it here and there" as if they werent 2 games of the same franchise, DIRECTLY CONNECTED IN LORE, like that's the entire point of Ds3 to refence past entries and contineu and even properlly finish the story of the series as a whole, why are people like this?
I agree with so many points in this. Dark souls 3 is probably my least favorite souls game, but I still can't bring myself to hate it.
Dark souls 1 introduces things slowly for new players, but experienced players can use the master key to take a wildly different approach to the beginning and build in many different ways to start with.
Dark souls 2 allows you to jumpstart any build within 2 boss kills. It's fantastic. The slowness of the combat is a big difference from the others, and soul memory could have been great with 1 tiny change.
Dark souls 3 is a great game, but it is so much more linear. For a PvP player, starting new builds is a chore more than anything else. The bosses are fun enough. The pvp mechanic of how invasions work inmediately stacks odds against you.
The worst thing to me about dark souls 3 is how much I want to love about it, that is just ripped from something else.
Abyss watchers is a cool design and a neat fight. Phase 2 is just Maria again. Large sweeps of bloody fire.
Gael is the coolest end boss ever. He is literally just the orphan of kos. With a crossbow.
I love the gimmick fights. Demon's souls is as entertaining as it is because every boss is a new puzzle. First fight with the deacons and figuring out how the HP bar works was a nice thing. Wolnir and breaking the bracelet before he pushes too far forward is super cool. Ancient wyvern is the natural progression of the dragon god.
They felt like evolutions of Demon's Souls.
But then. Almost every, single, boss fight had to have the Phase 2. And it felt like just buildup so they could pull the rug during freide's fight.
TL;DR Every Souls game has faults, and people see more from the ones they like the least, and everyone should be able to see the good and the bad in all of them.
It's okay for games to have faults as long as you still like it! Except dark souls 2
@@ZeroLenny true enough. I've put more hours into ds2 than the other 2 combined, and just recently got it on steam to play again on PC, and it does, unfortunately, have the lowest lows of the series. Some of the highest highs though. It is by far the most... Inconsistently good game.
@@ZeroLenny at least Ds2 was trying new things. Ds3 seems to have been designed to be the simplest, most mechanically accessible Souls game possible. There is no exploration because maps are linear, nearly every boss can be killed by spamming r1 with a dex weapon, invaders are a joke now. I understand that making a game simpler can help it appeal to newer players but I really think it came at the cost of making a very boring, sterile game.
I really do enjoy you sharing your insight on dark souls. People who have played it for a long time truly understand that it's far from perfect but it's still the greatest thing ever.
For me DS3 gets the title of “best of the trilogy”. Bosses always were my favorite part of Miyazaki-soft games. Regular game had SoC, Nameless, AW, the Twins, then came the DLC, Friede and the 3 phases of fun, Gael, and literally every DLC boss was at the very least descent (talking about the PvP boss here).
IRL, people always love DS3 and BB. I guess the key word here is speed. This games give good i-frames by default and while they are more linear, they also provide better enemy scaling because of that.
DS1 and 2 are for people of “certain tastes” from what I gathered. The combat is way slower in both (turn based almost, although that argument has the flaw of being a Hitless guide when followed to a t) and while they earn replay ability because of the choice of paths, it’s clear that some enemies will become harder thanks to your decisions while also getting a guaranteed easy boss rush at the end. Twins and Gherman are good challenges compared to a late game Nito or the Lost Sinner.
And finally there is Sekiro. IMO Miyazaki games are always improving with new releases. It can be played with only parry and attack, but knowing which attacks are better do dodge, mikiri, jump-stomp, as well as the Shinobi prosthetic and combat arts have made that game easily have the best combat that’s peek gaming. Elden Ring will have a hard time improving on that but I’m sure that game will compensate with having a lot of content (Sekiro’s amazing gameplay came at the cost of balancing only around PvE and only having 1 main weapon). Yet Sekiro also exposes the community. It had all the qualities that make DS3 and BB god games (and in my list, Sekiro stands with this 2 masterpieces) yet the lack of overleveling and very demanding gameplay made many ragers hate on it and Mr Casual can’t call a friend when he is stuck.
Souls was never a game about difficulty. I view it as a journey. In an age were games try to be like movies Fromsoft has given us a game that values gameplay at the core. A playground with lore that can transport you into a different world (learn to read, don’t wait for the Vaati videos!). Difficulty is not wether the game is hard or easy, but a test on how much we evolved as a player on the journey. We don’t eat NG+7 broken sword Gael’s for breakfast because he got nerfed, but rather we have the ability to know his entire moveset and we take our favorite approach!
You pretty much don’t say anything in this comment except stupid shit.
Ds3 was a bad game and a bad souls game. It has no player freedoms; it’s build variety is abysmal. I’ve never seen a game with such bad build variety.
It had shitty bosses. Bosses being flashy doesn’t mean anything when they’re painfully easy and take no actual thoughtful strats to beat. Literally hit once or twice and then roll spam dodging their whole combo with ease..
Neither twins nor Gerhman are hard. Twins also have a lot of artificial difficulty which doesn’t matter much cos of how easy the game is..
Also souls are literally about difficulty. Miyazaki has said it himself. They’re supposed to be super difficult to make you feel accomplished. Which doesn’t really explain why his future games are so easy and why ds3 holds the players hands in everything they do..
Also a lot of the things you said about learning moveset and challenge applies to ds3 the least. You don’t need to do any of that, bc it’s not hard. You just spam roll mid attack, roll extremely soon in the recovery frames for your attack and effortlessly dodge everything with ease. You don’t need to know what the attack is or what direction to roll in, You just wait until you see their arm move and then roll spam towards them and you won’t ever get hit
Y'know some people say that DS3 is a little too easy, and I've always come to disagree. It depends where you start. Ds3 was my first game, so DS2 and DS1 were PAINFULLY easy with my first playthrough having single digit deaths and DS1 feeling like Blocking/Weapon Deflection simulator. DS2 is the one I like the gameplay the least, because everything feels so samey. In DS1 and 3 you can feel the difference between individual weapons when you attack with them.. in DS2 all light weapons feel the same and all heavy weapons feel the same. I loved every game and played them ALL to death and while DS3 has the least interesting design choices, it is the highest quality of the three while still posing a fair bit of challenge for nearly every player. Those extra I frame given to you are countered by the speed and agression of bosses. Nearly every boss is able to rollcatch, starting with vordt even. Saying the game is just rollspam is completely wrong because they thought of that when making the game, just like DS1 isn't all about blocking or DS2 isn't all about... honestly idk ds2 is a very weird game and has no focus, not a bad thing tho. The final boss felt more like a love letter to the player than the stupid nostalgia bait everyone says it is. DS3 is not a weak game held up by nostalgia and callbacks, it's a strong independent standalone game filled with love for the first two (and even Demon's Souls)
@@zzodysseuszz ds2 had the easiest bosses, the game is hard cuz of the shitty amount of enemys thrown everywhere( quantity over quality ), ds1 bosses where also no hard so ig ds3 is the hardest
It just depends what's the one u start with
@@zzodysseuszz I feel like you haven't even played the game or you've played so much of the other games to the point where you just breezed through it because of your experience. There's a simple solution to this, if the game is too easy for you then you have the option to make it harder. You're obviously too good for this game so why don't you try something to make it harder like an sl1 run? And no, I don't believe you if you say an sl1 run isn't hard either, the bosses will take so long to the point where they WILL catch you out of your rolls at some point like they're designed to and most of the late game bosses' attacks WILL one shot you. After playing through DS3 a few times and knowing the boss attack patterns off by heart, I played an sl1 run and it felt like I was playing the game with no previous experience again so I heavily recommend it if the regular game is too easy for you.
@@zzodysseuszz pitiful nonsense.
If you made a list of every Dark Souls game people didn't "hate", it would just be Dark Souls.
Wow Lenny, those maps made the whole video! I didn’t agree with anything until you put the fucking maps on screen! Fucking lovely!
Thanks for keeping Solitude safe
Np sexybeast14
I recently started DS3 and it's the first souls game I've ever played, so I can't say if it's better than the previous ones, what I can say tho is that it's a great game, I still find it very challenging but in the best way possible possibly because of the simplicity of the fighting mechanics, it makes me feel challenged but not overwhelmed while remaining entrataing because of it's smoothness and precision, I feel like it's the perfect place to start if you never played a souls game
after you're done please play the first one you wont regret it.
This is so goddamn true, couldn't have said it better myself
My main reason for disliking... well not dislike.. but i didnt like it as much as the other entries due to armor not really meaning shit. In ds1 if you invested heavily into endurance and wore the heaviest strongest armor it felt like it. When you play DS3 if you in rags or havels armor it all feels the same when you get hit.
@@danieljones3606 literally lol
Do you also watch shows and movies from last to first?
I play these games for the experience while the difficulty is secondary. The interconnected world and vague story telling keeps me thinking about it. Each time you reach a new area or read a description and connect a piece after piece until the story becomes clearer and clearer. Even when Dark souls 3 had a fair bit of big holes, it was still enjoyable, I keep my judgement with my first experience. I loved it them, and I still love it now.
I‘ve never heard about anyone hating ds3 i only heard people calling it the best dark souls out of the 3
One thing people fail to mention when they say that ds3 is too linear with it`s level design is the fact that ds1 and 2 are alo very linear (realistically), while you can go to a bunch of different places at the start, you often don't have a good reason to because the enimes in most of those places are going to destroy you.
It's not so much linearity as it is just interconnectedness
I feel Ds3 discourages spamming rolls and R1’s on the mid to late game bosses. Examples like pontiff, dragon slayer, nameless king, soul of cinder, champion gundyr, twin princes, Gael, friede, and midir punish panic rolling or getting over zealous with R1’s. Specifically in friede fight it pays to use the stomp weapon art to knock or down or use R2’s in gaels fight to poise break him during an attack
DS2 is my favorite because of how many weapon options there are to play with, all the fashion and easier bow builds for when I'm in the mood. DS1 is my favorite for the map design and layout. DS3 is my favorite for the polish to all the leveling and multiplayer components and how it feels when you play, its the same but a much smoother experience. Bloodborne is my favorite because it takes the DS formula and twists it into a new and exciting experience with new lore, trick weapons and slight variations on the combat which opened me up to shield-less playthroughs in the other games. Each game has its place and I bounce between them when one gets stale but I always return because they're fun for their own specific reasons.
I honestly never get why people hated DS2 so much. It was way more interesting than DS1.
I even ended up missing some of the mechanics in DS3. But I realy love them all.
They are not perfect... But which game is!
@@Alex-K94 I certain bullshit dlc perhaps
@@dan_iix7256 DS2 dlc is still the best content Fromsoft has made to date, including Elden Ring
@@glowerworm ds2 dlc better than old hunters ?
@@Spoopy_man personally I think so, yeah. Although they are pretty close.
I'd say that Old Hunters is better than Ivory King, on par with Iron King, and behind Sunken King.
i just hate that delay after you hit any button. i didnt notice anything in bloodborne and elden ring but ds3 has a whole half second after you hit a button before you start the action
The game is heavy on ds1 references but I think it gets away with it because it sets itself up as being a direct sequel in the first 5-15 mins of the game (depends on how long it takes you to get to firelink shrine) compare that to DS2 where it basically has no real connection but randomly we get Dragonslayer Ornstein boss fight
Exactly. People complain on DS3 referencing DS1 a lot like it's a problem, then being totally ok with DS2 going in a completely different direction without even feeling like it's the same franchise. Like they have no idea what a sequel means. If there's one complaint I have for DS3 is that they missed the opportunity to include more stuff from DS2 lore to fix the problem with that game being too apart from the rest of the trilogy.
My favorite PVE experience is Demon's souls and Dark souls 1, I never thought that bosses were that important, since I always treated them more like a milestone to my progression, exploration and atmospheric immersion mattered more for me. Seeing game altering from mainly complex multi level exploration + combat to linear boss rush with enemies on crack was kind of disappointing.
I've never played Demon's Souls but doesn't it also have a mostly linear world progression?
@@shira_yone You can pick any world you want, only mandatory boss is 1-1 phalanx, you can even kill Allant pretty early, if you wish. Travelling into any world, exploring and fighting bosses in any order really opens you a lot of possibilities, also world design in DeS is built in more smart, DS1-like way, where you have only one checkpoint with plenty of shortcuts and ways to return to previously visited locations.
@@adradox I see.
I really hope DeS remake got a PC port so I can finally play it.
In this game I think the levels really really took a hit. I never wanna spend time exploring and collecting everything most NG+ runs I just sprint as fast as I can to the boss
Yeah it's a good boss rush.
I don't like having to explore when I've played the game 8 times over already, I just like to play the gameplay.
I loathe the boss runs so much. I hope ER fix's that. Getting to Aldrich was such a pain in the ass.
@@spookzer16 from what I've seen in the network test most boss runs are non existent
@@Cocorex1 Praise From that's amazing!
-DS3 kinda spits in DS1 lore, as well as ignoring all of DS2 lore.
-The multiplayer is deeply flawed, only bloodborne robs it the crown for the most troubled souls PVP
-There are tons of npc quests that are SOOOOO unsatisfactory, specially taking into account that people have to go through basically lost time to get the rewards.
-No early build diversity, even despite having many options to adopt, and not all of those options are completely viable.
- No sense of discovery or excitement, many of the enemies are either uninspired (sooo unlike what a souls game should offer) or direct reappearences or old enemies from DS1.
- Only one of the endings offer a fresh alternative to the typical light or dark endings, just like DS2.
- NG+ potential is completely destroyed
- Bonfires everywhere, literally everywhere.
- Fanservice everywhere, even where it should't be any.
- Item drops are a torture.
- I find some of them fun, but the hacking issue was (or is???) crearly the most severe of the trilogy, I dont remember that much of a softban problem in the other games, for one.
The game is not bad, I enjoyed most of it and, as it is, we have a decent fun souls game, but you are not playing a evolution of the mechanics, you are not playing Dark Souls lll, you are actually playing Dark Souls 1 Part lll, where it shouldn't be a part lll, and it hurts a little.
I don't hate DS3, but it's definitely the weakest in the series for me. I think its biggest problem is that it tries to emulate Bloodborn, but still be Dark Souls. So it ends up in this weird in between where everything feels too fast while the player feels too slow. If I wanted to play Bloodborn, I'd play Bloodborn. If I'm playing a Dark Souls game, then I want it to feel like Dark Souls.
Right? They want to force you to dodge and attack the same way as BB, but the dash in BB is far far better for countering. They won't let you tank anything in this game at all......
I was a dark souls head. Ive beaten the first 1 doezens of time, it may be one of my favorite games ever made.
Imagine my surprise when i couldnt force myself to finish ds3 once.
Linearity and gimmick bosses were dumb but the combat especially is what bored tf out of me and to this day ive never played past mid game🤷🏼♂️
Same problem.. I even played 200 hours of DS2 (mostly due to the pvp, but anyways) but DS3 I couldn't finish once.
@@BellXllebMusic yea dude i feel like im crazy sometimes. Not many people seem to agree with me on this lol.
I tried to force myself to get through it and couldnt. I couldnt believe i had no desire to finish a souls game.
Ive even beat 2 multiple times and i dont really like 2. If play any of then now its always 1
as my first souls game honestly it was really fun to experience rolling through bosses using the weapon i got from my starting class until the end lol. i played hollow knight before this, and a lot of the bossfights in that game were really fun, reacting to attacks and dashing away/through them to get quick hits in, and especially nightmare king grimm, so this game just kinda felt like that, with some much better bosses, on a much more linear progression. definitely a good starting souls game, but i'm looking forward to playing the previous titles (i might just do dark souls 2 for the fuck of it next)
People just don’t know how to appreciate good content.
Real
I recently just 100% all 3 of the games and honestly DS3 is my least favorite as well, DS1 had incredible lore, and DS2 has a weird charm to the game that gets me nostalgic, but DS3 felt kinda soulless, a lot of things were just various shades of grey and it felt the most forced out of the 3 imo
This is exactly how i feel.
I’m convinced dark souls players don’t know what a sequel is, they’re not “references” it’s quite literally a continuation of the story in the same exact world, of course there’s going to be references
I think that if DS2 never existed, and DS3 was released as DS2, no one would really be complaining about the DS1 references. DS2 was set in a completely different place than DS1, and had nods to DS1 but buried into its own lore. DS3 being a return to DS1's story to finish it was probably somewhat jarring for people who had been playing DS2 since it's so disconnected from DS1's lore (compared to DS3, at least).
Thought some things in DS3 are more references/fanservice than just being a sequel. Like Anor Londo and the Aldrich/Gwyndolin plot line I'd mark as a continuation of the story, but Siegward's side quest was a pretty clear reference to Siegmeyer from DS1, and was definitely there for fanservice rather than because it's a sequel.
Ds3 was also the best Souls game in terms of not reusing bosses. I mean Gundyr was reused, but he got a new moveset. Crystal Sage and Dragonslayer Armour were reused, but it was only once, and that's really it.
Souls 3 is the "most souls-y" game of the trilogy in the best and worst ways. Personally, I was always meh on 3 because, of the series, i always had the atmosphere i enjoyed the least. Its why with all their faults, OG Demons' Souls and DS2 are my favorites, something about their tone and atmosphere really vibes with me compared to the others.
Most soulsy is a good way of putting it!
I started with bloodborne, so DS3 is my favorite. I love the faster combat and the environments were beautiful.
I LOVED how dark soul's Map connected, one of my favorite things and it always made return play throughs feel like coming back to a familiar cozy place. Dark Souls 3 has NONE of that and it's still my favorite Dark Souls game, which I think says something about the REST of the game itself.
I know it’s not all connected and there’s nothing that connects back to the shrine like in DS1 but it does connect a fair bit. Like you can run from Anor Londo all the way back to Undead Settlement without having to fast travel.
It is linear and there are areas that don’t connect like undead settlement and high wall but most areas do connect to each other just very linearly
People criticize that there's references to an earlier game in a sequel? I mean that's the whole point isn't it?
Yea these people are soo slow i see soo many people crying abt that like it wasnt a main point of the whole fucking game lmao
@@aestheticleviathan7028even themes of the game are about the consequences of what happened in ds1 and ds2
The lightning miracle hit wayy to close i though lenny literally spied me ive spent 3 hours grinding souls at the sewage entrance to Gwynevere painting and only to know the damage beyond shit but thank god ive discovered the finger of rosaria lol
I found lighting spear to me amazingly good with the correct build. Except on dragonslayer armor. That man is a bitch with his resistances.
@@RoachXV for real
I don't mind the DS1 references, it felt good to have a more direct sequel to it, also I think in the year of our lord 2021 magic has become much more viable in PvP at least (how many backwards facing backsteppers with soulmass do you see?) I don't know about PvE, but also I think weapon arts could get a little more credit than you gave them, with the right infusions and stat scaling a lot of them are the strongest attack in your arsenal and can cut fight times in half (murakumo spin slash ftw) my biggest criticism of the game would be the linearity but as you mentioned its not as big of a deal due to the quality of the bosses, also as a PvPer I feel like the linear design allows you to get to the parts of the game that are good for PvP faster which is nice, good video though lenny, lots of valid points
Just because I see lots of people backstepping around with CSM doesn't mean it works. DS3 fans are pretty notorious for their cope mentality - it works like an abusive relationship. They ignore the 80% bad for the 20% good in PvP.
Or they go full hollow and twink the fuck out of the early game.
As of yet, the only weapon are I have seen to be useful is Perserverence because poise and Gundyr's charge because it tracks well and Chase loves quick-swapping it to kill runners. All other weapon arts commit way too much and just aren't worth trading for R1 spam and reactive spacing.
I disagree completely. Every time I picked up a weapon and used its art I put myself at a disadvantage. Maybe there are exceptions but if you go through the game multiple times and not one time a feature is useful, it is a complete failure.
Looking at pvp games as a whole I just do not understand the appeal of dark souls pvp. I mean just watch a fight, and then watch a fight from another pvp game and you notice just how stupid DS pvp looks.
@@slinkyslink5161 DS pvp is great, it requires a lot of mechanical knowledge as well as skill, the netcode has just always been trash in these games, but the collision is satisfying, a good duel is always fun for me
@@monsieurdorgat6864 I disagree, the PvE is fun as fuck too, also twinking is meh, especially on PC with access to things like the honest merchant mod, but also in regards to the weapon arts my point was that they do alot more damage and are more useful than lenny made them seem, im not trying to say theyre the end all be all to R1s but they are an effective way to output lots of damage and from did a good job of balancing them because when they do work theyre devastating so its only right that they should be very punishable
to me, this game stands against almost every aspect of the souls series that i loved, even entirely removing some of my favorite game mechanics instead of just nerfing them into the ground.
this is legitimately the first ive heard of any consensus that the game is disliked, or even notably flawed.