Even after Elden Ring, DS3 bosses are my favorites I just love how difficult and fair they are, Gael, Soul of Cinder, Sullivan, Twin princes, Abyss watchers and many others are so epic
@@axelnova123 I can respect your opinion, I just love how much more varied the fights were in Elden Ring (talking about Shard Bearers). It felt like Demon Souls again where the "big bad" of the legacy dungeon had a lot of thought put into making their fight unique. I mean, Rennala, Radahn and Morgott alone showcase three wildly different fights, where as in dark souls 3, I feel like everything was just the same (and the puzzle bosses in DS3 were boring for me). But, like I said, I respect everyone's opinions. Dark Souls 2 and 3 are the worst Fromsoft game though. Shots fired. I did it.
Elden Ring did bring a few new "GOAT" fights to the table like Dragonlord Placidusax, Starsscourge Radahn, Morgott Omen King, and God Devouring Serpent (perfected the "Storm Ruler" fight), and I'd personally add Lichdragon Fortisaxx, Astel and Rennalla (perfected the "big crowd" fight) as well. But yeah, DS3 still reigns in the overall boss department - but I really hope for another 3 (or 4) phase boss in an Elden Ring DLC!!! I can't wait to play Sekiro later on, though - I never really got started before ER dropped (the lack of leveling and making a build doesn't appeal so much to me, but I MUST play it sooner or later).
@@ghoulish6125 I definitely disagree about Elden Rings fights being varied. To me, it feels like every boss just makes use of a huge aoe, some sort of status effect, a grab attack, or running away and making you chase them (dragons, elden beast, etc). Elden ring has some amazing exploration, but my god the bosses are a bore imo
The Pygmy did help fight the dragons, and more accurately he split his soul among all the other Pygmy’s and all his subjects. However Gwyn, ever the paranoid asshole, downplayed their part in the war and erased them from history, but not before “rewarding” them with a city on the edge of the world too far away to ever pose a threat to the age of fire. Further he gifted them Darkeater Midir to “protect” them from the abyss, should it ever rise up (though more accurately Midir was supposed to kill all the humans there should they ever embrace the darkness and try to rise agains gwyn) AND even further Gwyn “gifted” them his own daughter Filianore, who is able to transport people into the future should she feel threatened, likely another failsafe against a possible uprising.
Well, that's one way of looking at things. Some corrections are necessary tho. Furtive Pygmy's only contribution to the story is finding The Dark Soul, then splitting it into pieces and giving to other pygmies. If Furtive Pygmy was a ruler at some point, they wouldn't been forgotten. Pygmies who fought against dragons weren't erased from the history, they just didn't get a big piece of pie from Gwyn (like, for example, Seath became a duke and got himself grand archives). Gwyn didn't "gift" Midir to the Ringed City. Midir's task was to literally clean after pygmies so darkness they spread wouldn't create another Abyss. An here also lies the purpose of the Ringed City itself - to keep corrosive darkness of the pygmies away from the rest of the world. Fillianore also doesn't send you to the future "as the last failsave". By waking her up you break the illusion of the Ringed City and see, well, if not the definitive reality, at least a version of it - a world as a vast desert with remnants of other kingdoms buried in sand.
Foul human, born of dark. Gwyn is our incandescent LORD of light, our GOD, who in his beneficent magnanimity has allowed pitiful and low humanity to exist in the glorious age of fire. Fucking HERETICS, I bet you haven’t even blinded yourself and gone on pilgrimage to Lothric. #WayOfWhite4Ever
Filianore doesn't "Transport people into the future" that's incorrect, Filianore is able to suspend the time of the Ringed City with her slumber, and effectively puts a seal on the Ringed City in the form of Time being incredibly slow there, preventing The Dark of it to be a threat towards the God's rule.
@@kilambrown4302 Doesn't explain why literally everything besides the player is suddenly aged beyond all belief, remember we can see anor londo and Lothric castle covered in ash just the same.
@@draxxilion5957 Yes it does. the Ringed City is held in an almost perfect Time stop, with Filianore as the catalyst. And it apparently was like this since for before Dark souls 1, and yet still remains relatively untouched by time. So what logically happens when the Ashen One of the present Dark souls 3 age, enters the Ringed City, that is being almost completely slowed to a standstill? The time inside the City is much slower than the outside, and The Ashen one matches that speed. Meaning the time flowing outside is going incredibly fast. And finally when the Ashen One awakens Filianore, the catalyst of the effect is lost, and the time stopping effect is stopped. And theoretically the timeflow of the Ringed City flows forward to stabilize with the rest of reality. So basically, to summarize: 1. time is really slow in the Ringed City, 2. you the player enter the City 3. You are slowed in comparison to the rest of the world while in the Ringed City. 4. You break the spell on the City 5. Time for the City rushes forward and the Player is left in the undefinite Future.
i beat elden ring a while back and decided to give DS3 another chance. after finishing it i feel like it holds up really well against elden ring. i don't care for open world, even though they did it nicely. i prefer the format of ds3/the rest of the soulsborne this video is great, i'm gonna re-watch this one for sure
honestly I hope that they keep the level structure of bloodborne and dark souls if they continue those series or create a new IP while continuing the open world if they start an elden ring series. best of both worlds!
@Basedlander I thought exactly the same, to be honest, when I played for 30 hours. It was better than bloodborne and Sekiro. And now, after almost a year, and 130 hours, with a platinum trophy, I can tell you for sure: This game is worse for me personally, not only bloodborne and Sekiro, but also DS3/1. It's right there, next to DeS/DS2. Still a good game though.
See, I don't mind open world but I prefer a more linear world for Soulsborne games. I know people now hate open world games but I've always enjoyed them. But Soulsborne games very different to open world and I like that about them.
The Twin Princess will forever be my favorite DS3 boss. Lorians Teleport mechanic is the most fun Ive had dodging and predicting moves in the whole series, I cant help but stand in awe at such beautifully choreogprahed set of diverse abilities being thrown to fuck my shit up in so many different ways lmao
All of that while being a VERY fair fight too; only really his big slam one shots you - the small beams in phase 2 rarely stagger you till you're dead, unlike a lot of other endgame bosses.
It took me completely one day to succeed that fight.. I lost almost 170 times.. l slept tht day in anger woke up fresh & 3rd try i killed with 4 flasks remaining i was surprised how easy to read it became after tons of failures.
Agree. My favourite bosses are dancers, twin princes and nameless king. Very beautiful moveset, and very rewarding to learn to beat them solo. Can't say about consumed king and pontiff. XD
@@planetmaker3472 I think he was trying to shit on 2, like, “You think this trilogy is goated, did you even play 2?!” Which I disagree with, but everyone’s entitled to their own opinion 🙌
@@liamflan9553 Man, the 2 has five really good bosses, being generous. Sinh, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Velstad, and Ivory King. Dark Souls III has: Gael, Friede, Champion Gundyr, Midir, Nameless King, Abyss Watchers, Ponfiff Sullyvahn, Twin Princes, Dancer of the Voreal Valley, Soul of Cinder. Even average bosses like Oceiros, Aldrich, Dragonslayer Armor or Vordt are superior against the mayority of Dark Souls II bosses. Not get me wrong, i love DS2 for his setting, atmosphere, lore and places, but please, not compare it.
I’m pretty sure that phase 2 soul of cinder isn’t just an homage to gwyn, but it literally IS gwyn possessing the soul of cinder as a last ditch effort to preserve his age of fire.
I typically find that a souls fans’ favorite game in the series is usually (not always) the first one they played because no matter what, every new game after your first one will never have the same mystery. You’ll always know on at least a small level, what you’re getting into. Dark souls 1 was my first and favorite for a really long time. Elden ring changed that because it was the first time since DS1 that I fully had that perfect mix of mystery and dread. DS3 and bloodborne are great though and I can always admit they were mechanically, far superior to 1. Just couldn’t get my nostalgia glasses off.
Dark Souls 1 is my first and still favorite from the souls games but my favorite FROM game is Sekrio. ER felt like a step back to me after how Sekrio branched out in a different direction.
@@nomercy8989 I was not a fan of sekiro because it basically only provided one way to beat the game. You had no choice but to learn to parry and there was not very much build diversity at all. ER definitely follows more of a DS formula with its gameplay while taking small things from sekiro and Bloodborne. Sekiro is a completely different kind of game though so it’s completely fair to like it the most. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
I am in the same boat. DS1 was a life changing experience for me, for when I played it it was at a critical stage of my life. Here comes Elden Ring during another crossroads in my life. So both games, I love, and both games were/are healing for me. Love all the From games, but these two hold the highest position for me.
There are many things I dislike about DS3 that I'm sure are separated from nostalgia towards DaS. I just think the whole world of DaS is much better realized.
not necessarily . I playde ds2 first and even though i still like that game quite a bit despite some of its flaws . I still have DS3 as my favorite souls game (almost tied to BB).
This video is amazing, however at 31:33 I'm pretty sure there is a small mistake. The profaned flame didn't kill everyone, Yorhm linking the flame did. He intended to put out the profaned flame by linking the flame (not sure how 1 fire puts out another, but whatever) and when he linked the first flame the first flame erupted thru the capital and killed all the humans, but nothing else. This is supposedly why he is so mopey, he burned himself alive to save them, but his action actually killed them. Vaati has an interesting theory that since except him, and obv Gwyn the first time, all the Lords of Cinder are human, and that maybe the first flame can only be linked by humanity and Yohrm as a giant made the flame find a different source.
@@MegaCoupie I mean it does make sense in the ds3 world where the fires are "different" but irl fire is just fire you cant exactly say that one snuffs out the other, they become one.
Yeah, fromsoft has a way of making us feel sad for the enemies we fight, like remember the beast men in bloodborne oh they’re actually this and that with tragic backstory and they make it grey to a sense it feels sad, realistic, and gritty.
Ds3 was the first dark souls game I beat, and that was just yesterday. The bosses were really fun. Only really had issues with the nameless king. A friend gifted me elden ring so I'm super excited to get into that.
@@moiseman That's overly cynical and you know it. There are enemy repeats, but 90% of them are optional content. You're also ignoring the many ways the game otherwise improves over ds3 (vastly expanded combat system, better and more varied visuals, crafting system, qol changes, way more content than base ds3)
Lorian is extremely fair. He’s nice enough to start the animation of the move he’s going to do post teleport before he teleports. His attacks are easy to read and dodge and his combos are short. Probably one of the fairest lords of cinder, cough cough Aldrich arrow attack
Aldrich is like the easiest lord unless you're using dark damage for some unholy reason. The worst part about Aldrich is the homing magic orbs he starts to spam all the time during second fase, as it's hard to avoid all of them consistently, so you'll get chipped by them more often than not. The arrow rain is annoying, but you can definitely avoid it more consistently by just running away.
Ds3 will forever be one of my favorite games of all time. An absolutely masterpiece in my eyes. Elden ring is amazing and an extremely innovative and ambitious game. But dark souls 3 to me is the pinnacle of the “souls” games, and the primary reason for this is the BOSS FIGHTS. So many super memorable and absolutely bad ass bosses. I’ll never forget the first time fighting the abyss watchers, the nameless king, twin princes, soul of cinder, friede, Gael, etc.
After Elden Ring was my first souls game, I'm playing dark Souls 3 right now, I beat shullyvahn the other day and honestly, I don't get why people think dark Souls 3 has better bosses, no one is spectacular or a amazing boss and they are super easy to beat, there are Elden ring mini bosses that feels better than most of the main bosses in Dark souls 3
@R.M. Montaño Abyss Wathchers is a super easy boss, I defeated them in 10 hits. In the other hand the twin princes is a really good boss, the best of the base game in my opinion
@@itoito7104 you’re overleveled then and complaining the game is too easy, you can do the same exact thing in Elden ring if you just grind for levels and stuff
Even though I loved Elden Ring, I sincerely hope we still get to see more Fromsoft games bringing back the linearity here and there, expecially if it's dealt like DS1 that was not entrely linear while still not a complete open world game. I think open world games are not necessarily an upgrade in comparison to linear games, it's just different kind of games. They didn't want Elden Ring to be Dark Souls 4, and I get that, the world of Elden Ring is incredible. I just think if we only have open world games from now on, eventually there will be no more variety or the creativity behind a top tier level design as DS1 or even Bloodborne.
Thing is, Elden Ring feels like the end. There isn't any more opportunity for iteration or innovation. It feels like goodbye to the series. Plus they already confirmed next game is gonna be an armored core game
It feels like open world games are explicitly a step down. Any time taken out of the main quest (in development) to spend on side stuff is detrimental to the main game and story, and only results in content which is pointless busywork. The only way to really make it work is with the investment of far more resources in making it, and even with that Elden Ring ended up massively flawed for the same reasons as all open world games (plus a few more unique reasons all its own).
@@lapelcelery42 you're completely ignoring the fact that every single souls game is MASSIVELY flawed too. Ds1 had half the game cut, ds2 was.. ds2, and ds3 people hated everything that wasn't a boss fight. Elden ring sold a gazonga ton of copies and is STILL being MASSIVELY played despite its flaws. The open world IS the game changer. It's a better game overall. Just not a better souls game (basically things souls fan focus on)
The way they deliver the lore is genius in comparison to massive exposition dumps and long cutscenes I’d say that this was the final and most compelling hook to bring me back when originally playing demons souls as obviously the first thing was the combat followed by a sheer will to beat the difficult stages and bosses which was at first done out of spite but was enhanced by the elation of beating the first boss and subsequently the rest of the bosses then came the moment where I was intrigued by the fact that I had no idea what was going on which was the most fun part pricing together my interpretation of the lore and story after mastering all the mechanics and completing the game twice bringing me back again and again to fill out the story by seeking out every secret, item and npc which was like no other story telling I have ever encountered and got invested in
Personally I think they perfected the presentation with Sekiro (even though BB is my favorite lore in the series). Enough cut scenes and direct exposition that anyone gets the gyst of your motivations, but so much detail in the background to sus out
does anyone actually like sitting through 5 7 minute cutscenes in a row then after that standing there talking to the npc for like 10 minutes about the 59 cutscenes yoy just watched
Tbh item deacriptions are literally expositions. No way those things are written on items themselves. Plus there should be more stuff we know because our character knows.
As much as im loving elden ring rn and its everything i wanted, itll never beat the pure joy i had playing ds1 for the first time back in 2013, and the hype and bosses of ds3
I played ds1 first time in 2020, Wasnt exoecting much and the playthrough was totally blind. So no wonder i had an absolute blast playing that game. DS1 is a lightning caught in a bottle, u cant replicate that. Sure there are superior fromsoft games, but there will never be another DS1 ever in this current climate of game insdustry
I went from World of Warcraft (Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King and early-mid Cataclysm) to playing Dark Souls 1 blind single-player in 2011/2012. I was so mind blown by a single player game having SO many nooks and crannies to explore, rewards pretty much everywhere, places that are sealed off for an eternity, until I come back a different man 40 hours later, harsh mechanics (I got cursed in early 2012 and contemplated my "Souls" life), ENORMOUS bosses that you CAN kill, lots of weapons and builds that just got cooler as the game went on. I was already more than satisfied in the Undead Burgh with how good & challenging the level design was, then the magic, mystic Darkroot Forest with a GIANT Hydra. But when I scaled the depths of Blighttown, went down to "hell" (Demon Ruins), discovered the lands of the dead (dark Tomb of Giants), the giant passable crystals and invisible bridges in Crystal Cave, the void (Abyss), "heavenly" Andor Londo... 10/10 not even Bloodborne or Elden Ring could give me that sensation again, although they've come close (especially ER in terms of location variety)!
The world and level design of everything up to orstein and smough is fromsoft best work and has been beaten since. It’s shame it couldnt be carried over to the second half of the game
Agreed. I started from bloodborne, ds3, ds2 and then ds1. I can't tell you how much Ive loved this entire series. I'd pay to experience it all, over again.
Dark Soul 3 will always be special to me. I know people say "oh there's a lot of fan service" and all that but I don't see how that's a bad thing. It felt like a proper continuation of the events of Dark Souls 1. To this day it still has some of the best locations, and memorable boss fights and characters in the franchise. Really felt like it's where they perfected the tone of Dark Souls.
People act like expending hundreds of hours modeling Anor Londo and writing new lore to continue the story was made out of laziness, like they just copy and pasted it directly from DS1
IMO the single biggest appeal of Dark Souls is how immersive the world is, it really feels grounded and atmospheric and like you're on a long and dangerous journey. To have almost every level and character in Dark Souls 3 be incredibly blatant fanservice completely destroys my immersion. Irithyll/Anor Londo and Smouldering Lake/Izalith are really good, but most of the rest just felt unoriginal. I also really don't like how the slow and grounded combat went completely out the window and now my armored knight is rolling like a gymnast and doing anime ninja flips, it isn't appropriate to the tone of the world at all.
@@thomasmaddox8688 1. Not everything needs to be original, you deviate from the original and people hate it, you try to make a sequel and people call it "fan service". Fan service isn't even a bad thing. It's easy to look at the things from the older games and say "oh my god fan service" than to look at all the new characters, lore, mechanics and places added to the game. 2. The pace of the combat has nothing to do with the tone and is much more engaging. Playing DS1 after DS3 makes the fights feel so sluggish. "Anime ninja flips" is a huge stretch. Bosses like Gael, Midir, Dancer etc would not work with DS1 combat. As great as it was it also basically boiled down to "hold block until you get behind enemy then smack butt". Do people really expect that gameplay to not evolve as newer games come out?
I've 100% the game finally a month ago, and realized how far I've gotten. After seven playthroughs, with arguments with my friends, leaving them, them leaving me...meeting new people, 1v1's, Gank City, Arenas......this game was a part of my life for 4 years! I started off at such low level and became a SL 448...How far I've come and to move myself to Elden Ring was hard but I sure can't wait for Return to [Insert Location]!!
In my opinion the average boss quality of DS3 is far above Elden Ring. In DS3 I feel every boss is well thought through and always designed fair, by giving the player enough time windows to attack (with every weapon) and always an oportunity to dodge attacks.
most elden ring bosses are at least decent imo . The only problem with elden ring when it comes to bosses is just the repeat bosses and the double bosses . But the bosses individually are just as good if not better than DS3 bosses.
The early Elden Ring bosses aren't bad but it becomes stupid end game. Feels like the game wanted you to be abusing spirit ashes the entire time. DS3 bosses all felt fair but still very challenging at the same time.
Ngl I love ds3 but Elden ring has some baller bosses. I definitely like a lot of the ds3 bosses but I like almost all of the Elden ring bosses. (Main bosses)
@@wanderingwobb6300 almost all elden ring bosses are fair (except godskin duo and a couple duo bosses) some are hard but all their moves are perfectly dodgeable and have tells before they happen.
@@idirbouchdoug1567 Nah shit like maliketh, Malenia, and pre nerf radahn are stacked against you to the nth degree. DS3 bosses were exceedingly challenging but felt doable with practice.
I played this game a few years ago and hated it immediately. I was too stubborn to get past the first little boss and thought the game was too hard. I just beat Elden Ring yesterday, and it was the most immersive, creative, and beautiful games I've played in my life. There's just so much passion and emotion put into the game. I decided to go back to Dark Souls 3 after beating Elden Ring and I can finally enjoy the game. I'm so glad I was introduced to the series with Elden Ring.
Ah man I remember when this game launched, me and my buddies were all over it. We all started with DS2, so this was a pretty massive step up in quality for us when we first played it.
What a way they ended the trilogy, such a great conclusion to everything. Seeing anor londo, hearing that piano in the final boss, just so many incredible moments for fans
With Lorian I disagree with a lot of what you said. You can clearly see a difference between the thrust and slam attacks. And one of his slam attacks is one handed while the other is 2 handed. I will admit his plunge attack is kinda bullshit though. Still a fucking amazing fight though. Prob best main game one imo
I second this. I always felt like this boss fight was very fair. His moveset is challenging enough to be fun for late game, but still telegraphed enough where you can easily learn to beat this boss for further playthroughs. I never had serious issues with the teleporting, if he teleports close the camera still tracks him, but if he teleports for the ranged attack, the windup is long enough to simply find him again. Video is great, but I really feel he is overstepping by outright claiming that the twin prince fight is unfair.
@@ed8054 100% agree I was watching and agreed with most of what he said but when he got to this I was absolutely flabbergasted. I would say, at least the first half of this fight is THE most "fair" fight in ds3. That isn't to say it's easy but you only need to try a couple times to get the rhythm of dodge attack, hit once (or twice depending on build) dodge attack, hit again, repeat until low on stamina or he teleports, if low stamina move away for regen, if he teleports watch to see if he's going to do the upward slash fire attack, downward slam, thrust, or slash, depending on which dodge accordingly. If you are no longer locked on then he's about to do the magic slam and you better start looking for his ass. I've only beat ds3 3 times and by the time I killed him on my first I knew the rhythm of the fight. That portion of the fight is seared into my brain because of how many times I had to do it. But the thing is if he hits you after he teleports, its most likely because you got greedy and didn't finish your attack animation. The fight is all about patience and paying attention to see what attack comes next. He kicked my ass so many times and I never, not a single time thought it was bullshit or not my fault. I could see it being bullshit if your camera unlocked Everytime he teleports, but it doesnt. If I was playing with a greatsword, that meant I could only get off one hit per "turn". If I tried for more I would get smacked down. The fight takes a while but this is a fight where if you get greedy you die, and it's no one's fault but yours. Edit: The more more I think about it, from what the video shows it feels like I never had any of the problems he was talking about, idk why but maybe if that stuff happened to me I would think it was bullshit. I don't want to be unfair in criticising the video so yeah, just wanted to add that.
@@austinwasmer9857 Agreed. I had trouble with him on my first playthrough because I was newer to the souls series. On my second playthrough, I beat him on my first try with no issues at all. No offense to the creator of this video at all, as I said it is very well made, but his issues with the twin princes sound like a classic git gud moment.
The dark souls 3 main menu theme is legendary... I put it on in my headphones when I'm turning all my machines on in the morning at work when I know its gonna be a tough day ahead to get me hyped
The Dancer will always be my favorite boss fight. But it's only because of how awesome she's designed plus the armor you get is awesome looking as well. Both times I've played, I've beaten her my first tries so I don't really find her that hard, but her movesets are cool none the less.
Excellent video man!! Really enjoyed it. I did want to point out a minor thing-the FP system for magic wasn't new with DS3, that was how magic was handled in Demon's Souls. The spells only became numbered in DS1 and DS2. Only difference is that DS3 also uses it for the weapon art/special attacks. Really enjoying your content man, excited I found this channel! Keep up the fantastic work.
To anyone complaining about Lorian, you have to remember the core mechanic: dodge when the hit HITS, not when the hit STARTS. You're dodging his attack, not his animation. Same could be said for Dragonslayer Armor's janky delayed 2handers, and the Nameless King's incredibly fast second phase with a lot of mixups. Dodge the damage, not the attack.
The one problem with this is the input lag. It is bad, luckily there is a mod on pc. Especialy recomended for sekiro, the game is so much easier and less frustrating
nameless king is basically a skill check. Find out his hit boxes, dodge those. Turn away from his lightning call down attack. And keep hitting him. And also remember that the fight is exceptionally long. So keep calm and keep swinging.
The flaw in your statement is that not everyone has perfect reflexes, attacks in DS3 are so instant that if you wait till the boss actually swings more often that not you're not gonna roll fast enough.
DS3 was my first Fromsoft title, and I loved it. I absolutely sucked during my first playthrough and I remember getting frustrated a lot, but after a certain point I started enjoying my deaths, and I could actually feel myself getting better at the game. I've probably beaten it 10+ times over the past 6 years, and have done builds with both melee styles and all three caster styles and had about the same amount of fun each time (even if I think they wildly differ in difficulty). By far my favorite parts are the boss fights, especially the DLC bosses (Friede and Gael in particular). Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to DS1/2 or Demon's Souls, but I have experienced most of Bloodborne and Elden Ring, and I think that as games they are just as good in all and all. While Bloodborne is definitely my least favorite of the three, I think that's just down to subjectivity and the fact that medieval fantasy is more appealing to me than gothic horror. I've seen a lot of people comparing DS3 and ER so I figured I'd add in my two cents. I think the overall combat system in ER is a tad better. Weapon Arts feel useful (or at least relevant) on 90% of weapons I've found in ER compared to like 10% in DS3, horse combat is a nice addition that helps vary the gameplay loop (although this isn't really a strike against DS3, since it's short enough to where it doesn't need it as much), and obviously the proper jump is great for a lot of reasons (jump attack FTW). I think the story is a little harder for me to choose a victor. I think ER is better at getting me invested in the story of any individual area consistently since NPCs tend to be a little more liberal and clear with info which helps the world feel alive and ancient and the mystery is really enticing for me, but I think the larger story of DS3 is stronger for me, since there are less unanswered questions as to the implications of each ending, and individual characters tend to be more consistently compelling and comprehensive in DS3 (Anri, Gael, Gundyr, and especially Yhorm and Siegward all come to mind as characters with compelling stories that I can also fully understand, whereas I can't think of an ER character I know the full story of even if what little I know does get me invested in them). If I had to choose, I'd probably pick DS3 since I personally connect with characters more than world building. The choice becomes way more definitive if we include the story of the DS trilogy as a whole, since I have learned of DS1's lore via Vaati and that does a better job than either of these games at establishing the world IMO, and having 3 games to draw from definitely helps the story overall. Design seems to be the most contentious point people are talking about. I think both games do really well in this regard, but since their formats are a fairly different I don't think it's fair to say one is objectively better, even if I have a subjective preference. DS3 feels a lot more "Peaks and Valleys" in terms area design for me. Farron Keep is a level I dread in every playthrough, especially if I want a particular item from that wretched swamp for my build, but ER had yet to give me something I hate that badly. Conversely, no area has wowed me as much as the Ringed City or the Corvian Settlement in ER so far. I probably prefer Elden Ring here though, since I feel like it at least gets close at times to DS3's highs, and is more distant from it's lowest lows. And this is where we get to what is most important to me in a game: Awesome boss fights. The highest highs and lowest lows are almost identical in terms of quality between both games for me. Neither game has a boss that I hate, but they both have a few bosses that I get nothing out of (Gravetender's and Ancient Wyvern in DS3, Godskin Duo, and a number of "Enemy Felled" mini bosses in ER), and they both have bosses I absolutely love such as Gael, Friede, SoC, NK, Gundyr, and Dragonslayer Armor in DS3 and Morgott/Margit, Godfrey, Rykard, Mohg, Rahdan, Maliketh, and the Lichdragon in ER. I can't fully articulate my thoughts on Malenia yet since I haven't beaten her, but I'm loving the feeling of getting a little closer each time I try to fight her and being able to dodge Waterfowl a little more consistently as time goes on, which is how I felt about Midir as well, so I'm guessing I'll be able to say I love both "Optional Superbosses" as well. I feel like both games dip a bit in boss quality in the mid-game for different reasons, but I think both have amazing starts and finishes (discounting Soldier of Godrick lol). Gael and Friede are still my top 2 Fromsoft Bosses though, and I think pound for pound DS3 is better overall than ER, especially if include the "mini bosses" of ER. Overall I think Elden Ring will probably end up being my favorite one so far if there is DLC that has bosses as amazing as Gael, but for the time being DS3 is probably my preference. Even though I haven't played all of From's souls-likes yet, from what I've seen you could tell me any of them are the best and I don't think I could fully dispute you, all opinions about subjective enjoyment are valid of course, but I'm glad the consensus seems to be that most people enjoy these games as much as I do
DS3 was a reintroduction to the series for me. I played 1 back on 360 when they gave it away for free to Xbox Live Gold members, for a couple hours then gave up because I found it too hard. But playing 3 after my brother told me I should give it a try I don't regret it. DS3 is my favorite FromSoft game and one of my favorite games of all time. The bosses felt so good to finally beat. The Twin Princes probably being my favorite in the game. And since beating DS3, I have beat DS1. But I just love 3 a bit more. Great video! I'll have ro check out your other stuff.
Lorian actually does have tells on what move he'll do when he teleports. After the teleport on you have to look at how he's griping his sword. Each attack his grip is different. Yeah you pretty much have to know the timings of each grip, but once you get it down he'll never hit you unless you just lose track of him.
Again, if he teleports directly behind you, this goes out the window. If he does one of his super fast swings it's impossible to see it coming and deciding to roll early could be bad if instead he does one of his delayed attacks.
I'm playing DS3 for the first time right now, and I am LOVING it. I'm only SL40 rn, going through the Cathedral of the Deep. Abyss Watchers are my favorite fight so far, and it only took me 4 attempts. Certainly more linear than DS1, but I am really enjoying this game
I love elden ring and had a blast playing through it. With that being said I think souls with an open world just kills the balance of the bosses. I felt like like every boss I fought I was either highly over leveled or highly underleveled after godrick. And it seems like the shardbearer or whatever they call the story bosses are much easier than some of the random bosses you run into. I get it that there really is no "intended path through elden ring so it had to be frustratingly difficult to balance but that is the reason I feel a metroidvania- half open world like ds1 compliments these games the best. Honestly if you took all the legacy dungeons like stormveil castle and volcano manor and lumped them all into a game I think it would be better for it. I did love the exploration and having torrent but I would sacrifice all that for tightly designed levels with great well balanced boss fights. I almost feel like elden ring is the closest to ds2 even though it obviously shares more with ds3. As far as the bosses are concerned it feels like quantity over quality and that is how ds2 felt imo. I also think ds3 has better pvp. The only invading Co op sucks and the taunters tongue gives you no incentive to use it and I've never been invaded with it on and you have to re use it every time you sit at a grace. Ds3 aged very well and I think I like it more now than I did previously.
I agree, it’s but not hard to see why given how vastly different player power levels can be. I will say I went elden ring expecting some of the complex level design to be sacrificed. But that was completely wrong, the dungeon areas are right up there with dark 3 and Bloodborne for great design. Vertical, dense, levels
@@flute136 haven't played er but from what I've heard they are more closed in and claustrophobic levels more akin to the older souls games. As opposed to the open world nature of er
Soul of Cinder has to be my favorite, though Twin Princess and even the Abyss Watchers are amazing. This was my first Souls game, and I loved every second of it and still do to this day
DS3 helped me through a very difficult time in my life, so it means a lot to me to this day. Ive beaten 1,3, Demon Souls, Elden Ring, Bloodborne. But I think DS3 is still my favorite. Glad to see other people with the same thoughts.
I dont see the issue with twin princes ngl i always found that fight really fair, like a test of your reflexes honed throughout the entire game until that point
I realized the other day I’ve been playing souls games for almost a decade. It’s been crazy to see how much the fandom has grown in the past 2 or 3 years. I’m glad so many people have been able to experience these titles and appreciate them like myself and the other vets. Praise the sun!
@@Slugonthese Dark Souls 3 will feel the most familiar and is my personal favorite game in the series. Dark Souls 1 is great but very different to the games that come after it. DS1 also has a decent chunk of experimental areas and mechanics that never came back since people didn't enjoy them. I would go with DS3 first because you are likely to enjoy it more than DS1 after coming from Elden Ring.
yeah, after fighting morgott, pontiff's combos don't feel too bad anymore... plus malenia is basically friede on crack, i'm kinda scared how crazy the endgame-fast-lady-boss will be in the next fromsoft souls game, provided we get one after ER
@@naiiin6949 I’ll take a Friede & Maria double team inside of DragonRiders arena over getting my ass reamed by Malenia again. FS next barefoot overpowered mistress will have Malenia’s speed, Radahns height, Godskin Apostles input reading ability, Radagons pubes, and a fucking tail cuz why not..
Thank you so much for this video! This is one of my favorite games ever, my favorite in the Dark Souls series, and it's always good seeing it getting the love it deserves!
What i really like about ER, is that it really takes up a lot from the school of DS2. A lot of mechanisms and things really remind me of what DS2 couldve been, and it shows with the sub-director being the DS2 director
DS2 was far too ambitious for its time. The concepts they had were genuinely incredible, like the original design of the Gutter and the journey you go through in the sewers to actually get there like in the trailers. Unfortunately, hardware limitations and scheduling issues from Bandai are a bitch. I’m glad Elden Ring actually embraced some of DS2’s design. It brings the whole series together beautifully.
I’m ashamed to say I only recently discovered your content, which is amazing. As a visual designer and gallery hosted painter, I would also like to mention to all players that are starting with Elden Ring and are blown away by how beautiful the art direction is, Dark Souls 3 (and 1) is a MUST play for many reasons, but to appreciate how amazing From Software’s visual design and art skills really are. Elden Ring is so gorgeous because From understands art and design trends that other companies don’t and implements them well. Like one beautiful thing that most players may not even notice, every area in Elden Ring has its own unique color palette. Limgrave? Built in a vibrant green palette. Liurnia? Deep blue palette. Caelid? An Auburn palette with faded notes. These really help deliver the story of each area as well as giving you a great visual distinction in where exactly you are. Their games are filled with tons of these simple, but deeply impactful art choices that you may not notice if you don’t work in that specific field, but you look at and just now this is a true work of art. Which is where the beauty of the Souls franchise comes in. It’s a direct visual contrast to Elden Ring. Elden Ring has this visual theme that the world is not in the best shape, but it isn’t beyond hope. There’s still beauty in its world, a sense of nobility (even small touches like being able to add capes to armor as well as the armor itself using more polished metals and regality.) The Souls games contrast this by giving you a world that’s really on its last breath before dying. You’re in this world with art direction that makes you question “is this a world that’s even worth saving?” They follow so many excellent art and design trends in those games as well, but almost go in the opposite direction. There’s no nobility and regal nature to be found, except for flickers of it from older days (like Gwyn and Nameless King. Their design shows they were once truly something to marvel at, but now, they’re literally husks adorned in once majestic armor that’s falling apart.) Instead of Elden Ring where you’re in a world that still has hope, still has life, and still has a reason to be saved. There’s hope for it, Dark Souls gives you a world that’s been unnaturally prolonged and preserved in the wrong state for so long that the world itself is rejecting this state, and falling apart. Even armor design in Souls tells this story. There’s no regality like in Elden Ring. All of the iconic armor sets in Souls aren’t adorned in polished silver and gold like in Elden Ring, and the sets in Souls that have gold and silver appear worn down, non polished, and used for function not to display a sense of status. That’s the theme of the armor in souls. It’s visuals show that they’re only meant to serve a function, not show status. And the world design uses varying palettes as well, but in a way that’s oppressive and again, makes you question why should you even save this world? From Software are masters of art direction and the Souls games are a beautiful contrast to Elden Ring in many way, including art direction. Take this guy’s advice, his incredible video should’ve convinced you already. They’re worth diving into. Edit: another beautiful little thing From included in certain boss fights in Souls that (to my knowledge) are not in Elden Ring is empathy driven story telling in the fights themselves. In the end of Sif’s fight he begins to limp and he goes from a difficult foe to a creature you now feel sadness and pity for and you just want to get the fight over with because it makes you feel like a monster. In 3 there’s the Old Demon King. A lot of players may kill him so quickly you’ll miss this, but after that large explosion attack he’ll do at the end of his health bar you’ll see his entirely burned out, barely enough energy to swing his weapon and this being, who is the last remnant of his entire race, is reduced to this pathetic state of a once king that can’t even find the strength to swing his weapon. It’s subtle, but beautiful storytelling without a single word.
I know that part about Old Demon King. on my every subsequent playthroughs, I took off my weapon after he exploded and proceeded to beat him to death with my bare fists.
I think DS3 is much more consistent than ER in the boss topic. Even though ER had some great fights and some that even perfected past ideas from DS3, like Yhorm/Rykard as someone else mentioned.
23:40 - I disagree! I quickly learned that Lorian ALWAYS teleports to the same position relative to your character, and the animation before the teleport tells you which attack he is about to do. So you know the attack and the location before it happens, and when he ported I already knew how to dodge the incoming attack. But the big instant kill where he can teleport to any random location and you either manage to camera him or die, is absolutely freaking BS....
This got me into the series as well. I personally think it is still my favorite. The overall boss quality, the music, the PVP are all things I look back on fondly.
im amazed at the thoughts on twin princes. they are my favorite fight and i always felt they were extremely fair with my only gripe being that they could be harder, never even noticed the animation stuff since ive always been fine dodging. the fight had a certain rhythm to it that once you get down it just clicks
Something about DS3's fights against the Irithyllians like Vordt, Dancer, and Sulyvahn will never be captured by another game, and that's okay. Because it just goes to show how much strength in presentation DS3 has.
Twin princess take = skill issue, it is such a phenomenal fight, the fact that the player has to make a decision as to where to dodge mere instants before the attack lands depending on lorian's pose post-teleportation is genius, his wind-up pre-teleportation is meaningless, demanding such high concentration makes this fight truly exhilarating and satisfying to overcome. The so- called inconsistency attributed to this boss is what makes this fight remarkable. In regards to the camera trouble, the only hiccup for me is simply locking onto lorian upon first entering the arena before he teleports to attack (which i always succeed in doing but the time frame is still very narrow), the times the lock-on vanishes is when he casts his holy sword attack and when entering the second phase with lothric but these have a pretty long wind-ups so locking onto him again really isn't any trouble. (Feel free to point out any grammatical mistakes i may have let slip since english is not my first language👍)
One thing I definitely recommend for any player that owns a PC copy of DS3: Try the big three Overhauls for DS3, Cinders, Convergence and Champion Ashes. Every one of them brings the game to a new level and fix DS3 in their ow way. Cinders brings a multitude of From Software content to the game and make a lot more builds not only viable, but fun as hell; Convergence focus on magic combat e map redesigns, changing routes and progression drastically; Champion Ashes bring new mechanics, some Bloodborne weapons and a focus in PvP balance.
When Elden Ring came out i started to play Dark Souls 3 again after having given up on it 2 hours in 4 years ago. And it catched me and taught me a completely new mentality in gaming. The value of challenge even if it may cost you time and nerves, the reward is always worth it. After having "finished" my first playtrough a couple of days ago, watching this video now is blowing my mind. The smouldering lake, the wyverns, gael and the nameless king are all things i did not manage to find. Knowing now that there is more i will try to be more cautious in my second playtrough.
It’s crazy I bought ds3 near the end of 2021 cause I needed to get back into a souls game since I hadn’t played bloodborne in years. It’s crazy how good the game still is today especially when compared to elden ring.
@@ValentinPagliari hard disagree as a massive bloodborne enjoyer I think it wipes ds3 off it’s feet and elden ring is just more expansive than ds3. Ringed city is my fav dlc tho fs
@@DCshandle Yes is expansive, huge, nice exploration. But the combat and bosses are better in ds3 imo. I have never played bloodborne. I will wait to a pc port, i guess.
@@ValentinPagliari The bloodborne combat is a lot more fast and parried based. Hope you can enjoy the game one day, it’s atmosphere is on another level. Respect your opinion ds3 is still an amazing game to me
Abyss watchers is my favorite boss fight of any game ever. Absolutely incredible and I wish I could re experience when I first went up against them and freaked out when the others rose
There's something therapeutic about hearing people talk about the general systems surrounding souls games, maybe because they're already so ingrained into my working knowledge.
Interesting. I actually love the Twin Princes fight. Further I feel like Elden Ring bosses have a lot of these seeming inconsistencies in their move sets. I still can't tell when Malenia does her dash into sword flurry, why the direct follow up attack is sometimes fast and other times delayed. And its too badly telegraphed to dodge by reaction alone, at least for me.
Ds3 was the first dark souls game I played and beat, I’ll always remember beating Nameless King on my 15th try and how hype I was. Probably the best gaming moment I’ve ever had
Anri and Horace are an awful example at not knowing where to find NPCS. They literally tell you that they are going to Irythill, which can be found through the catacombs that follow the Farron Keep lmao.
I agree. I also think that using a shield is a totally fine thing to do too. I used to think using a shield was a crutch, but if you know how to dodge then using a shield is a great tool for attacks that have tricky timing.
This souls game is honestly my favorite of the FromSoft library I think. I love Bloodborne for its overall gameplay mechanics, but Dark Souls 3 has several of my most favorite bosses of any game ever. Abyss Watchers, The Dancer of the Boreal Valley, and The Twin Princes.
i actually love the twin princes I've gone at them so much I've carved their timings into my brain, but yeah it's definitely a little insane for a new player, especially a first time soulsborne player (i started with bloodborne so i was used to the fast combat)
Elden Ring was my first "souls" game and I absolutely loved it. I decided to go play DS3 because I was craving more new content. While I can appreciate some of the quality of life improvements in ER, Im loving DS3 as well. I have no idea how I missed these. I loved the Darksiders games, especially 2. Looking forward to er dlc.
I don't agree with some of your statements on Lorian. The way you have to react is extremely consistent, especially after the teleport. It's my favorite boss because in no other fight the dodge feels this satisfying. Overall this video reminded me just how much I love this game, especially the lore and themes.
For me anyways, the camera lock on for Lorian is always very consistent. On the normal teleport moves where he teleports and stabs, the camera stays locked, it only unlocks when he teleports far away to do the really long charged holy smash attack, it forces you to look around quickly for Lorian to not get hit by it.
The point you made about Lorian is funny. I found it was a learning curve. It forced you to improve your reaction time and rewire your brain to roll when you're about to get hit, not when the charge up starts. I'd say the twin princes is even top 3 for me.
you do go to londor in the dlc, its implied and shown that londor is the ringed city, also known as courland. Londor was its original name as stated and shown by the architecture. The marriage sword is on the tops of the buildings for instance. courland was its later name
What? There's no evidence whatsoever implying Londor is the Ringed City. The fact both were influenced by the same ideas (defiance to the gods, Kaathe's Dark Lord credo, etc) doesn't mean they are the same. The lore coming from their items indicate completely different societies. Londor is probably an extension of, or inspired by, the legends of New Londo, while Ringed City was created by Gwyn himself.
Good shit. Found your channel after YT dropped your Prey 2017 vid in my feed. Coincidentally, that game is in my top 5 and I enjoyed your take, so here I am watching a one-hour vid about a game from a series I’m not what some may call “a die-hard fan” of. Keep at it!
As someone who tried and failed to play Dark Souls back in 2012, Dark Souls III really was the first Souls game I found success in back in 2016 (and I still quit 15 hours in while fighting against High Lord Wolnir because I was such a scrub) However, after playing through all the Souls games two summers ago, I think it’s fair to say that Dark Souls III is truly the best Souls game for newcomers. Dark Souls has a grueling first third with a difficult learning curve (for its sloooowww gameplay) and little to no direction (for someone entirely new to the souls series), Dark Souls II has the jankiest combat and most uninspired level design/mob encounters (also your health lowers every time you die until you use a limited resource to restore it, what’s up with that?) and Bloodborne has two incredibly difficult starting bosses. Demon’s Souls I’ve never played, but would be eager to hear how it is for newcomers to the series. I would honestly put Elden Ring into an entirely different category. If someone played a Dark Souls game, but wanted a taste of something with improved gameplay and more open-ended level design… well then Elden Ring is your game. But for someone going in blind to the series, I also think Elden Ring is a fair starting point, as it’s the most accessible that I’ve ever seen of a Souls game. Certain gameplay features are explained that never would have been before, and there’s STILL so much depth to Elden Rings combat, exploration, and quests for more hardcore players. The bottom line is that Elden Ring, much like Dark Souls III, is accessible to newcomers and hardcore Souls fans alike, and it will hold up for a long, long time.
None of this is true because the games have been getting faster and faster over time. The most accessible games are the older ones, because they reward careful gameplay, which is the default for most newcomers. Further, Elden Ring is literally the most BS game in FromSoft's catalogue, even moreso than Sekiro (which I think is their best game). Furthermore, Elden Ring is inherently more aimless than older games because it's open world. The game has a serious lack of cohesion.
My favorite in the series will always be DS1, I still remember asking the GameStop employee for a game that was similar to zelda but for the Xbox, and he recommended DS as it had just released that week. I returned the game 3 days later cause I couldn’t pass the first Taurus demon(this was before the big patch that made the game slightly easier). A couple months later I purchased the game again because i couldn’t stop thinking About it. All these years later and I wish I could relive that moment.
Love Elden Ring a lot, but oddly enough it’s existence just has me really nostalgic about the games that came before it. Like I just recently played DS3, but for some reason it as well as the other games seem so far removed from where we are now. Maybe it’s because Elden Ring is so huge. Either way DS3 will probably remain my favorite. Elden Ring is really good and there’s so much to do, but to me it feels like DS3 with a lot of fat. Although there are some great new features and a lot of the areas are simply breathtaking. DS3 is just an all around quality freaking package with hardly any blemishes. Edit: Elden Ring still has plenty of replay value for a long time to come, but I’m really interested in how the DLCs turn out. The Dark Souls 3 DLCs (particularly Ringed City) elevate the game to even crazier heights of greatness. Bloodborne also had a fantastic DLC and Shulva is one I really enjoy in DS2.
Elden Ring is my first souls game I'm 60 hours into the game and I'm falling in love with the genre! I'm definitely interested in trying Dark Souls 3 !!
I really wish that abyss watchers were a late game boss. Its such an amazing concept for a boss and the basic moveset they've got is great but they're just way too easy.
@@conta-fake6723 they're still one of my favorite bosses in the series but I must admit lore, character design and their uniqueness carry the fight. Still though its not a bad fight just too easy for veteran players.
I started with Dark Souls 3 as well and this video really highlights a lot of what got me nearly addicted to souls-borne games as a whole. I think you also deserve far more subs than you have, your content is fucking fantastic so keep it up!
3:30 I used to level up my vitality because it raises my equip load allowing me to do fast rolls even if i had a heavier armor or weapon... Fast rolls comes out faster, you have more i frames and you can dodge further
fast rolls and medium rolls have the same amount of I-frames i believe, its just that fast rolls cover greater lengths of distance in the span of the roll, I think
DS3 is in my opionion the best Souls game. It might be an unpopular opinion but I just love its grey and depresing atmosphere. And the voice acting. Everytime I hear "rise if you would, for that is our curse" I get so much goosebumps. Firekeepers voice is just ... perfect. Sister Friede's voice and soundtrack in that fight is also perfection. Elden ring might be overall a better game with better mechanics, graphics and much more content and I enjoyed it A LOT, but there's something in DS3 that really does it for me.
Can't say I agree about the item descriptions. It's not an awful way to deliver story, and it's far from the only way to pick it up. Besides a few standout items, the npcs tell you everything you need to know. I think a bigger problem is the attention span and vocabulary of most players
Lorian I'd disagree, but could because I never paid attention to his hand movements and more of his actual attacks. Also I see a minority, a loud but still minority of people who say "this game should have been bashed because it's a copy and past" I never got this, do then mean weapons and armor than I can agree to extent, but if it's gameplay, art, story, tone. then I don't know why you thought the 3RD game would be a complete overhaul of this like bloodborne which is a game before ds3 was made. people played because it's dark souls and this ds had more than enough to feel special on its own way when you take new armor, weapons, bosses location that aren't Anor Londo, music most of it is original and feels unique.
I always loved how Friede will refer to you as the Lord of Londor and how we have our own subjects to rule or something to that affect. Little detail thrown in there that she knows what you are if you do a certain ending.
great retrospective. ds3 was the first fromsoft game i fully completed and having played everything they’ve put out in the miyazaki era i still think it’s incredibly special. when i think about depictions of what hell might be like, i honestly think that ds3 is right up there with dante and bosch
I never had trouble with Lorian's teleport except at the start when he immediately goes to your back to beat you up. The camera always follows to where he will teleport to unless he wants to do the excalibur move, which also makes it very predictable. I guess the Elden Ring bosses trained me a little too well. Even Lothric's homing magic is easy due to the erdtree avatar using the same move over and over. Heck, the avatars also trained me how to dodge their attacks while running away from the homing magic.
I picked this game up in November of last year and had no idea it would start one of the most fun and enjoyable series I've ever played. I then played DS1 and saw that from software was making a new game. I was so excited and always remember where I first started
My biggest gripe with Elden Ring is how many moves enemies have and how they are allocated to seperate categories. Traditionally in the souls series, not every boss would have an AoE, a big swing, a slam (often plus AoE), but in Elden Ring even common normal enemies have that variety. Every fight against one of those anorexic trolls ends up either as a very defensive waiting game to punish some of the attacks, or I end up seeing the abundance of AoEs and slams because I get aggressive. (or they just spam their ranged wind-blast) Think about common enemies and even mini bosses. Experienced players are going to position based on the enemy they are fighting, but all that is thrown away in Elden Ring, because every moveset is so "well rounded", which means that my intuition leads me to only seeing slams and AoE, with basically no actual physical attacks. I get that any enemy without a ranged attack just dies to the very strong spellcasting in this game, but I find it very unfulfilling to constantly dodge projectiles as a melee character
To be fair there's a lot of AOE Ash of War in Elden Ring so I don't really have problems in ER enemies & bosses, you just need to adopt in this game that's all.... While my biggest gripe in Ds3 is the fact that the whole level design almost completely linear lv design so you have to beat boss fight order by order in order to make a progress while in Elden Ring I can just immediately skip tutorial boss & being able to skip first area in limgrave just to get all op weapons it's just so much fun & there nothing to stop me to do anything since this is interconnected Open World Games
All the soulsekiro games are great, and most are masterpieces. For me this is the current ranking: 1. Bloodborne 2. Dark Souls 3. Sekiro 4. Dark Souls 3 5. Elden Ring 6. Dark Souls 2 7. Demon's Souls With ds1, ds3, sekiro and elden ring being all close together, and ds2 and DeS falling a little behind. But without a doubt, bloodborne is the greatest game ever made, suffering only from being a ps4 exclusive and not being able to warp from lamps, but required to go back to the dream always
@@ghoulish6125 I didn't play it back then, and using pcsx3 emulator and having played all other souls games I must place it at the bottom. Still one hell of a game, but it's too outdated. But I can't deny the gloomy atmosphere and some of the best level designs, best hub area...
@@asketillus8679 DS2 is a great game, trully. It's the one I can replay the most because I am in love with it's atmosphere. But cannot really go toe to toe with the games above. Ds3 really polished the game and had the best soundtracks (not better than BB), best bosses and so on...
I replayed ds3 after not being able to play elden ring for a second playthrough (first playthrough was great tho) and i decided to go for platinum this time, got the trophy today and these past two weeks made me realize why ds3 always was my favorite souls game.
The Lothric Princes are actually an amazing fight, the issue is you can't play them like most others in Souls. Took me until my second run to realize that you aren't supposed to reliably dodge and hit. You learn the timings for dodging and eventually spot openings (bc they'll consistently pause after certain combos). Once I learned that the fight became one of my favorites. I can actually get to the second phase without damage. You just need to keep dancing around him until he runs out of stamina. But it's hard to get used to that when so many bosses allow for a dodge or 2 then a hit consistently. You have to think about his attacks as a really long combo and be patient.
So before I watch this, I'm going to state my opinion on DS3. It is the greatest game I've ever played. It is my favourite. Hands down, no contest even with two playthroughs of Eldin Ring. Best combat, balance, lore, bosses, community, story and feel. I will forever love my Millwood Greatbow duels in the Ringed City, getting lucky in Irithyll of the Boreal Valley and not being ganked as an invaders there, salty gankers quitting out. So, to be a bit more serious; DS3 has Eldin Ring beaten in several regards, but the most important is boss experience. I think that too many late bosses in Eldin Ring have health bars that are way too big (at least if you aren't using extremely strong setups). Melenia to be frank, has to much health alongside her gimmick of health steal. The easiest boss comparison I can think of is Sister Friede. Does anyone complain about Friede's health bar? Not really, its her stamina that's complained about (This is an issue for Melenia as well, alongside input reading. At least put a small delay on the reaction From Soft. I can lock her into the stab for as many heals as I have. I've done this on purpose, several times). Friede has three phases, the last one being among the best fights I've ever had fashionsouling as Ornstein, that all have well telegraphed attacks and clear ranges for each of her attacks alongside each gimmick of the individual phase. Like, I get the desire to make bosses harder, but increasing health dramatically isn't how you do that. Why does the final boss have so much health that light weapons can be mistaken for doing no damage despite being fully upgraded and having properly invested stats? Also why is the Fitness Gram Pacer Test a boss? Sure, Midir was a bit like that, but the charges that moved him across his arena were attacks to be dodged, not him just repositioning. Also having a smaller arena meant he could run off to the other side of the arena and it didn't take half a minute to reach him. My favourite bosses from both have to be Godfrey and Champion Gundyr. I get the same feeling of joy when fighting them, both are rather unique in that several of their attacks move them sideways rather that straight at or away from you, which means they have a unique ability to maintain spacing favorable to them, something pretty hard to overcome. Godfrey's arena wide, unblockable stomps being dodge-able by jumping, which means more stance damage as you can jump attack while he stomps, is similar to being able to read Gundyr's kick of tracking and punishing it consistently. Honestly, at this point, Godfrey's stomps are just free damage. I can Bolt of Gransax AoW, or Loreta's Slash to avoid it while still doing damage. Regardless, Godfrey's health is probably the most fair of the final run of bosses, but that might be just how I fight the dude. Radaboyo could do with less AoE's. He has like four attacks that don't explode in some way. FG and EB are really bad health sponges though. I should probably watch the video...
Even after Elden Ring, DS3 bosses are my favorites I just love how difficult and fair they are, Gael, Soul of Cinder, Sullivan, Twin princes, Abyss watchers and many others are so epic
sekiro.....is better
@@kingplatinum5724 Sekiro is better than DS3, that much is true, but both of them are better than Elden Ring, at least in the boss department.
@@axelnova123 I can respect your opinion, I just love how much more varied the fights were in Elden Ring (talking about Shard Bearers). It felt like Demon Souls again where the "big bad" of the legacy dungeon had a lot of thought put into making their fight unique. I mean, Rennala, Radahn and Morgott alone showcase three wildly different fights, where as in dark souls 3, I feel like everything was just the same (and the puzzle bosses in DS3 were boring for me).
But, like I said, I respect everyone's opinions. Dark Souls 2 and 3 are the worst Fromsoft game though. Shots fired. I did it.
Elden Ring did bring a few new "GOAT" fights to the table like Dragonlord Placidusax, Starsscourge Radahn, Morgott Omen King, and God Devouring Serpent (perfected the "Storm Ruler" fight), and I'd personally add Lichdragon Fortisaxx, Astel and Rennalla (perfected the "big crowd" fight) as well.
But yeah, DS3 still reigns in the overall boss department - but I really hope for another 3 (or 4) phase boss in an Elden Ring DLC!!!
I can't wait to play Sekiro later on, though - I never really got started before ER dropped (the lack of leveling and making a build doesn't appeal so much to me, but I MUST play it sooner or later).
@@ghoulish6125 I definitely disagree about Elden Rings fights being varied. To me, it feels like every boss just makes use of a huge aoe, some sort of status effect, a grab attack, or running away and making you chase them (dragons, elden beast, etc). Elden ring has some amazing exploration, but my god the bosses are a bore imo
The Pygmy did help fight the dragons, and more accurately he split his soul among all the other Pygmy’s and all his subjects. However Gwyn, ever the paranoid asshole, downplayed their part in the war and erased them from history, but not before “rewarding” them with a city on the edge of the world too far away to ever pose a threat to the age of fire. Further he gifted them Darkeater Midir to “protect” them from the abyss, should it ever rise up (though more accurately Midir was supposed to kill all the humans there should they ever embrace the darkness and try to rise agains gwyn) AND even further Gwyn “gifted” them his own daughter Filianore, who is able to transport people into the future should she feel threatened, likely another failsafe against a possible uprising.
Well, that's one way of looking at things. Some corrections are necessary tho.
Furtive Pygmy's only contribution to the story is finding The Dark Soul, then splitting it into pieces and giving to other pygmies. If Furtive Pygmy was a ruler at some point, they wouldn't been forgotten. Pygmies who fought against dragons weren't erased from the history, they just didn't get a big piece of pie from Gwyn (like, for example, Seath became a duke and got himself grand archives).
Gwyn didn't "gift" Midir to the Ringed City. Midir's task was to literally clean after pygmies so darkness they spread wouldn't create another Abyss. An here also lies the purpose of the Ringed City itself - to keep corrosive darkness of the pygmies away from the rest of the world. Fillianore also doesn't send you to the future "as the last failsave". By waking her up you break the illusion of the Ringed City and see, well, if not the definitive reality, at least a version of it - a world as a vast desert with remnants of other kingdoms buried in sand.
Foul human, born of dark. Gwyn is our incandescent LORD of light, our GOD, who in his beneficent magnanimity has allowed pitiful and low humanity to exist in the glorious age of fire.
Fucking HERETICS, I bet you haven’t even blinded yourself and gone on pilgrimage to Lothric.
#WayOfWhite4Ever
Filianore doesn't "Transport people into the future" that's incorrect, Filianore is able to suspend the time of the Ringed City with her slumber, and effectively puts a seal on the Ringed City in the form of Time being incredibly slow there, preventing The Dark of it to be a threat towards the God's rule.
@@kilambrown4302 Doesn't explain why literally everything besides the player is suddenly aged beyond all belief, remember we can see anor londo and Lothric castle covered in ash just the same.
@@draxxilion5957 Yes it does. the Ringed City is held in an almost perfect Time stop, with Filianore as the catalyst. And it apparently was like this since for before Dark souls 1, and yet still remains relatively untouched by time.
So what logically happens when the Ashen One of the present Dark souls 3 age, enters the Ringed City, that is being almost completely slowed to a standstill? The time inside the City is much slower than the outside, and The Ashen one matches that speed. Meaning the time flowing outside is going incredibly fast.
And finally when the Ashen One awakens Filianore, the catalyst of the effect is lost, and the time stopping effect is stopped. And theoretically the timeflow of the Ringed City flows forward to stabilize with the rest of reality.
So basically, to summarize:
1. time is really slow in the Ringed City,
2. you the player enter the City
3. You are slowed in comparison to the rest of the world while in the Ringed City.
4. You break the spell on the City
5. Time for the City rushes forward and the Player is left in the undefinite Future.
i beat elden ring a while back and decided to give DS3 another chance. after finishing it i feel like it holds up really well against elden ring. i don't care for open world, even though they did it nicely. i prefer the format of ds3/the rest of the soulsborne
this video is great, i'm gonna re-watch this one for sure
honestly I hope that they keep the level structure of bloodborne and dark souls if they continue those series or create a new IP while continuing the open world if they start an elden ring series. best of both worlds!
@Basedlander I thought exactly the same, to be honest, when I played for 30 hours. It was better than bloodborne and Sekiro. And now, after almost a year, and 130 hours, with a platinum trophy, I can tell you for sure: This game is worse for me personally, not only bloodborne and Sekiro, but also DS3/1. It's right there, next to DeS/DS2. Still a good game though.
Bloodborne was peak
@The House Always Wins you're smoking crack 💀 sekiro better than any of these games LOL better than DS1. I'm old enough to be your daddy
See, I don't mind open world but I prefer a more linear world for Soulsborne games. I know people now hate open world games but I've always enjoyed them. But Soulsborne games very different to open world and I like that about them.
The Twin Princess will forever be my favorite DS3 boss. Lorians Teleport mechanic is the most fun Ive had dodging and predicting moves in the whole series, I cant help but stand in awe at such beautifully choreogprahed set of diverse abilities being thrown to fuck my shit up in so many different ways lmao
All of that while being a VERY fair fight too; only really his big slam one shots you - the small beams in phase 2 rarely stagger you till you're dead, unlike a lot of other endgame bosses.
I have no fucking clue how they made a teleporting, reviving, mage boss extremely fun to fight
It took me completely one day to succeed that fight.. I lost almost 170 times.. l slept tht day in anger woke up fresh & 3rd try i killed with 4 flasks remaining i was surprised how easy to read it became after tons of failures.
Agree. My favourite bosses are dancers, twin princes and nameless king. Very beautiful moveset, and very rewarding to learn to beat them solo.
Can't say about consumed king and pontiff. XD
@@awesomedogwhoiswatchingcoc3464 Because the boss doesn't teleport away from you, and because it doesn't spam
Gael has to be one of the most incredible boss fights ever. Great way to end a goated trilogy
Did you play 2
@@liamflan9553 what boss in 2 gets close?
@@planetmaker3472 I think he was trying to shit on 2, like, “You think this trilogy is goated, did you even play 2?!”
Which I disagree with, but everyone’s entitled to their own opinion 🙌
@@liamflan9553 Man, the 2 has five really good bosses, being generous. Sinh, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Velstad, and Ivory King. Dark Souls III has: Gael, Friede, Champion Gundyr, Midir, Nameless King, Abyss Watchers, Ponfiff Sullyvahn, Twin Princes, Dancer of the Voreal Valley, Soul of Cinder. Even average bosses like Oceiros, Aldrich, Dragonslayer Armor or Vordt are superior against the mayority of Dark Souls II bosses. Not get me wrong, i love DS2 for his setting, atmosphere, lore and places, but please, not compare it.
my favorite character in any video game Uncle Gael
I’m pretty sure that phase 2 soul of cinder isn’t just an homage to gwyn, but it literally IS gwyn possessing the soul of cinder as a last ditch effort to preserve his age of fire.
I typically find that a souls fans’ favorite game in the series is usually (not always) the first one they played because no matter what, every new game after your first one will never have the same mystery. You’ll always know on at least a small level, what you’re getting into. Dark souls 1 was my first and favorite for a really long time. Elden ring changed that because it was the first time since DS1 that I fully had that perfect mix of mystery and dread. DS3 and bloodborne are great though and I can always admit they were mechanically, far superior to 1. Just couldn’t get my nostalgia glasses off.
Dark Souls 1 is my first and still favorite from the souls games but my favorite FROM game is Sekrio. ER felt like a step back to me after how Sekrio branched out in a different direction.
@@nomercy8989 I was not a fan of sekiro because it basically only provided one way to beat the game. You had no choice but to learn to parry and there was not very much build diversity at all. ER definitely follows more of a DS formula with its gameplay while taking small things from sekiro and Bloodborne. Sekiro is a completely different kind of game though so it’s completely fair to like it the most. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
I am in the same boat. DS1 was a life changing experience for me, for when I played it it was at a critical stage of my life.
Here comes Elden Ring during another crossroads in my life. So both games, I love, and both games were/are healing for me.
Love all the From games, but these two hold the highest position for me.
There are many things I dislike about DS3 that I'm sure are separated from nostalgia towards DaS. I just think the whole world of DaS is much better realized.
not necessarily . I playde ds2 first and even though i still like that game quite a bit despite some of its flaws . I still have DS3 as my favorite souls game (almost tied to BB).
This video is amazing, however at 31:33 I'm pretty sure there is a small mistake. The profaned flame didn't kill everyone, Yorhm linking the flame did. He intended to put out the profaned flame by linking the flame (not sure how 1 fire puts out another, but whatever) and when he linked the first flame the first flame erupted thru the capital and killed all the humans, but nothing else. This is supposedly why he is so mopey, he burned himself alive to save them, but his action actually killed them. Vaati has an interesting theory that since except him, and obv Gwyn the first time, all the Lords of Cinder are human, and that maybe the first flame can only be linked by humanity and Yohrm as a giant made the flame find a different source.
Basic science if you create a massive fire next to a smaller flame it would steal the oxygen from the fire and snuff it out
Thank you for the correction, still a tragic backstory. Poor Yhorm :(
@@MegaCoupie I mean it does make sense in the ds3 world where the fires are "different" but irl fire is just fire you cant exactly say that one snuffs out the other, they become one.
Yeah, fromsoft has a way of making us feel sad for the enemies we fight, like remember the beast men in bloodborne oh they’re actually this and that with tragic backstory and they make it grey to a sense it feels sad, realistic, and gritty.
wait how do you know all linkers were human?
Ds3 was the first dark souls game I beat, and that was just yesterday. The bosses were really fun. Only really had issues with the nameless king. A friend gifted me elden ring so I'm super excited to get into that.
My first was Bloodborne and then shortly followed by DS3, its easier to go from Bloodborne to DS3 than to DS1 😂
DS3 is great, but man they outdid themselves with Elden Ring. I'm sure you'll love it if you enjoyed DS3.
Hell yeahhh, W Friend.
@@jabronijackpot Elden Ring is literally DS3 without any pacing and filled with generic copy pasted content.
@@moiseman That's overly cynical and you know it. There are enemy repeats, but 90% of them are optional content. You're also ignoring the many ways the game otherwise improves over ds3 (vastly expanded combat system, better and more varied visuals, crafting system, qol changes, way more content than base ds3)
Lorian is extremely fair. He’s nice enough to start the animation of the move he’s going to do post teleport before he teleports. His attacks are easy to read and dodge and his combos are short. Probably one of the fairest lords of cinder, cough cough Aldrich arrow attack
Agreed
Yeah, this guy is just a crybaby because he is slow
I like to use dual daggers with bleed and quickstep. Super satisfying to take them out that way.
It takes a little time to get the timing down but once you figure out his teleport the fight becomes trivial. Super fair IMO.
Aldrich is like the easiest lord unless you're using dark damage for some unholy reason. The worst part about Aldrich is the homing magic orbs he starts to spam all the time during second fase, as it's hard to avoid all of them consistently, so you'll get chipped by them more often than not. The arrow rain is annoying, but you can definitely avoid it more consistently by just running away.
Ds3 will forever be one of my favorite games of all time. An absolutely masterpiece in my eyes. Elden ring is amazing and an extremely innovative and ambitious game. But dark souls 3 to me is the pinnacle of the “souls” games, and the primary reason for this is the BOSS FIGHTS. So many super memorable and absolutely bad ass bosses. I’ll never forget the first time fighting the abyss watchers, the nameless king, twin princes, soul of cinder, friede, Gael, etc.
Dark Souls III has the quantity and quality.
After Elden Ring was my first souls game, I'm playing dark Souls 3 right now, I beat shullyvahn the other day and honestly, I don't get why people think dark Souls 3 has better bosses, no one is spectacular or a amazing boss and they are super easy to beat, there are Elden ring mini bosses that feels better than most of the main bosses in Dark souls 3
@R.M. Montaño Abyss Wathchers is a super easy boss, I defeated them in 10 hits. In the other hand the twin princes is a really good boss, the best of the base game in my opinion
@@itoito7104 you’re overleveled then and complaining the game is too easy, you can do the same exact thing in Elden ring if you just grind for levels and stuff
@@user-ns4zm8qe9p Ds3 is the most linear souls game, if you can be over leveled by just playing the game normally then it's a bad game design
Even though I loved Elden Ring, I sincerely hope we still get to see more Fromsoft games bringing back the linearity here and there, expecially if it's dealt like DS1 that was not entrely linear while still not a complete open world game. I think open world games are not necessarily an upgrade in comparison to linear games, it's just different kind of games. They didn't want Elden Ring to be Dark Souls 4, and I get that, the world of Elden Ring is incredible. I just think if we only have open world games from now on, eventually there will be no more variety or the creativity behind a top tier level design as DS1 or even Bloodborne.
Thing is, Elden Ring feels like the end. There isn't any more opportunity for iteration or innovation. It feels like goodbye to the series. Plus they already confirmed next game is gonna be an armored core game
@@snipergod5216 Finally an AC game. The last one I played was AC2 in PS2.
@@snipergod5216 yeah I think the souls games need just a short break after elden ring, we need more mech games
It feels like open world games are explicitly a step down. Any time taken out of the main quest (in development) to spend on side stuff is detrimental to the main game and story, and only results in content which is pointless busywork. The only way to really make it work is with the investment of far more resources in making it, and even with that Elden Ring ended up massively flawed for the same reasons as all open world games (plus a few more unique reasons all its own).
@@lapelcelery42 you're completely ignoring the fact that every single souls game is MASSIVELY flawed too. Ds1 had half the game cut, ds2 was.. ds2, and ds3 people hated everything that wasn't a boss fight.
Elden ring sold a gazonga ton of copies and is STILL being MASSIVELY played despite its flaws. The open world IS the game changer. It's a better game overall. Just not a better souls game (basically things souls fan focus on)
The way they deliver the lore is genius in comparison to massive exposition dumps and long cutscenes I’d say that this was the final and most compelling hook to bring me back when originally playing demons souls as obviously the first thing was the combat followed by a sheer will to beat the difficult stages and bosses which was at first done out of spite but was enhanced by the elation of beating the first boss and subsequently the rest of the bosses then came the moment where I was intrigued by the fact that I had no idea what was going on which was the most fun part pricing together my interpretation of the lore and story after mastering all the mechanics and completing the game twice bringing me back again and again to fill out the story by seeking out every secret, item and npc which was like no other story telling I have ever encountered and got invested in
Personally I think they perfected the presentation with Sekiro (even though BB is my favorite lore in the series). Enough cut scenes and direct exposition that anyone gets the gyst of your motivations, but so much detail in the background to sus out
Punctuation. Please.
does anyone actually like sitting through 5 7 minute cutscenes in a row then after that standing there talking to the npc for like 10 minutes about the 59 cutscenes yoy just watched
Tbh item deacriptions are literally expositions. No way those things are written on items themselves. Plus there should be more stuff we know because our character knows.
@@DazeyChaineMusic yes, because I like reading.
As much as im loving elden ring rn and its everything i wanted, itll never beat the pure joy i had playing ds1 for the first time back in 2013, and the hype and bosses of ds3
I played ds1 first time in 2020,
Wasnt exoecting much and the playthrough was totally blind. So no wonder i had an absolute blast playing that game.
DS1 is a lightning caught in a bottle, u cant replicate that. Sure there are superior fromsoft games, but there will never be another DS1 ever in this current climate of game insdustry
I went from World of Warcraft (Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King and early-mid Cataclysm) to playing Dark Souls 1 blind single-player in 2011/2012.
I was so mind blown by a single player game having SO many nooks and crannies to explore, rewards pretty much everywhere, places that are sealed off for an eternity, until I come back a different man 40 hours later, harsh mechanics (I got cursed in early 2012 and contemplated my "Souls" life), ENORMOUS bosses that you CAN kill, lots of weapons and builds that just got cooler as the game went on.
I was already more than satisfied in the Undead Burgh with how good & challenging the level design was, then the magic, mystic Darkroot Forest with a GIANT Hydra.
But when I scaled the depths of Blighttown, went down to "hell" (Demon Ruins), discovered the lands of the dead (dark Tomb of Giants), the giant passable crystals and invisible bridges in Crystal Cave, the void (Abyss), "heavenly" Andor Londo... 10/10 not even Bloodborne or Elden Ring could give me that sensation again, although they've come close (especially ER in terms of location variety)!
The world and level design of everything up to orstein and smough is fromsoft best work and has been beaten since. It’s shame it couldnt be carried over to the second half of the game
Agreed. I started from bloodborne, ds3, ds2 and then ds1. I can't tell you how much Ive loved this entire series. I'd pay to experience it all, over again.
@@convictedsnail7102 ikr, there's just nothing quite like it, not even close, the feeling you get for the first time olaying their game
Dark Soul 3 will always be special to me. I know people say "oh there's a lot of fan service" and all that but I don't see how that's a bad thing. It felt like a proper continuation of the events of Dark Souls 1.
To this day it still has some of the best locations, and memorable boss fights and characters in the franchise.
Really felt like it's where they perfected the tone of Dark Souls.
People act like expending hundreds of hours modeling Anor Londo and writing new lore to continue the story was made out of laziness, like they just copy and pasted it directly from DS1
IMO the single biggest appeal of Dark Souls is how immersive the world is, it really feels grounded and atmospheric and like you're on a long and dangerous journey. To have almost every level and character in Dark Souls 3 be incredibly blatant fanservice completely destroys my immersion. Irithyll/Anor Londo and Smouldering Lake/Izalith are really good, but most of the rest just felt unoriginal. I also really don't like how the slow and grounded combat went completely out the window and now my armored knight is rolling like a gymnast and doing anime ninja flips, it isn't appropriate to the tone of the world at all.
@@thomasmaddox8688 1. Not everything needs to be original, you deviate from the original and people hate it, you try to make a sequel and people call it "fan service". Fan service isn't even a bad thing. It's easy to look at the things from the older games and say "oh my god fan service" than to look at all the new characters, lore, mechanics and places added to the game.
2. The pace of the combat has nothing to do with the tone and is much more engaging. Playing DS1 after DS3 makes the fights feel so sluggish. "Anime ninja flips" is a huge stretch.
Bosses like Gael, Midir, Dancer etc would not work with DS1 combat. As great as it was it also basically boiled down to "hold block until you get behind enemy then smack butt". Do people really expect that gameplay to not evolve as newer games come out?
I've 100% the game finally a month ago, and realized how far I've gotten.
After seven playthroughs, with arguments with my friends, leaving them, them leaving me...meeting new people, 1v1's, Gank City, Arenas......this game was a part of my life for 4 years!
I started off at such low level and became a SL 448...How far I've come and to move myself to Elden Ring was hard but I sure can't wait for Return to [Insert Location]!!
In my opinion the average boss quality of DS3 is far above Elden Ring. In DS3 I feel every boss is well thought through and always designed fair, by giving the player enough time windows to attack (with every weapon) and always an oportunity to dodge attacks.
most elden ring bosses are at least decent imo . The only problem with elden ring when it comes to bosses is just the repeat bosses and the double bosses . But the bosses individually are just as good if not better than DS3 bosses.
The early Elden Ring bosses aren't bad but it becomes stupid end game. Feels like the game wanted you to be abusing spirit ashes the entire time. DS3 bosses all felt fair but still very challenging at the same time.
Ngl I love ds3 but Elden ring has some baller bosses. I definitely like a lot of the ds3 bosses but I like almost all of the Elden ring bosses. (Main bosses)
@@wanderingwobb6300 almost all elden ring bosses are fair (except godskin duo and a couple duo bosses) some are hard but all their moves are perfectly dodgeable and have tells before they happen.
@@idirbouchdoug1567 Nah shit like maliketh, Malenia, and pre nerf radahn are stacked against you to the nth degree. DS3 bosses were exceedingly challenging but felt doable with practice.
I played this game a few years ago and hated it immediately. I was too stubborn to get past the first little boss and thought the game was too hard. I just beat Elden Ring yesterday, and it was the most immersive, creative, and beautiful games I've played in my life. There's just so much passion and emotion put into the game. I decided to go back to Dark Souls 3 after beating Elden Ring and I can finally enjoy the game. I'm so glad I was introduced to the series with Elden Ring.
Ah man I remember when this game launched, me and my buddies were all over it. We all started with DS2, so this was a pretty massive step up in quality for us when we first played it.
What a way they ended the trilogy, such a great conclusion to everything. Seeing anor londo, hearing that piano in the final boss, just so many incredible moments for fans
Copy and paste
@@Scitch-et4vk I forgot, when people share similar opinions it’s just copy and paste that’s right, silly me
@@jacobbowlby5957 I think he was saying the game is copy and paste
@@martian_turtle4070 oh ok, well then that would make sense
@@Scitch-et4vk Room temperature IQ individuals when the kingdom of the most important character in the story appears in the end of said story
Never had a problem with the camera in these games. When you're unlocked you have full 360 degrees control, and you can adjust it as much as you need.
Also ratio you absolute baffoon
*When you are unlocked
Step 1: You don't
@@14dyingstars This is the kinda guy who says Nameless King is trash, because he chooses not to unlock on the King of Storms.
Playing unlocked is so important for a lot of fights throughout the series, makes crowd control way easier
@@autumnleaf45 I also play unlocked for any big enemy and most group encounters. Got more fun takes?
"pigmy is easily forgotten"
He said the line, he said the line
With Lorian I disagree with a lot of what you said. You can clearly see a difference between the thrust and slam attacks. And one of his slam attacks is one handed while the other is 2 handed. I will admit his plunge attack is kinda bullshit though. Still a fucking amazing fight though. Prob best main game one imo
I second this. I always felt like this boss fight was very fair. His moveset is challenging enough to be fun for late game, but still telegraphed enough where you can easily learn to beat this boss for further playthroughs. I never had serious issues with the teleporting, if he teleports close the camera still tracks him, but if he teleports for the ranged attack, the windup is long enough to simply find him again.
Video is great, but I really feel he is overstepping by outright claiming that the twin prince fight is unfair.
@@ed8054 100% agree I was watching and agreed with most of what he said but when he got to this I was absolutely flabbergasted. I would say, at least the first half of this fight is THE most "fair" fight in ds3. That isn't to say it's easy but you only need to try a couple times to get the rhythm of dodge attack, hit once (or twice depending on build) dodge attack, hit again, repeat until low on stamina or he teleports, if low stamina move away for regen, if he teleports watch to see if he's going to do the upward slash fire attack, downward slam, thrust, or slash, depending on which dodge accordingly. If you are no longer locked on then he's about to do the magic slam and you better start looking for his ass. I've only beat ds3 3 times and by the time I killed him on my first I knew the rhythm of the fight. That portion of the fight is seared into my brain because of how many times I had to do it. But the thing is if he hits you after he teleports, its most likely because you got greedy and didn't finish your attack animation. The fight is all about patience and paying attention to see what attack comes next.
He kicked my ass so many times and I never, not a single time thought it was bullshit or not my fault. I could see it being bullshit if your camera unlocked Everytime he teleports, but it doesnt. If I was playing with a greatsword, that meant I could only get off one hit per "turn". If I tried for more I would get smacked down. The fight takes a while but this is a fight where if you get greedy you die, and it's no one's fault but yours.
Edit: The more more I think about it, from what the video shows it feels like I never had any of the problems he was talking about, idk why but maybe if that stuff happened to me I would think it was bullshit. I don't want to be unfair in criticising the video so yeah, just wanted to add that.
@@austinwasmer9857 Agreed. I had trouble with him on my first playthrough because I was newer to the souls series. On my second playthrough, I beat him on my first try with no issues at all.
No offense to the creator of this video at all, as I said it is very well made, but his issues with the twin princes sound like a classic git gud moment.
The dark souls 3 main menu theme is legendary... I put it on in my headphones when I'm turning all my machines on in the morning at work when I know its gonna be a tough day ahead to get me hyped
The Dancer will always be my favorite boss fight. But it's only because of how awesome she's designed plus the armor you get is awesome looking as well.
Both times I've played, I've beaten her my first tries so I don't really find her that hard, but her movesets are cool none the less.
Excellent video man!! Really enjoyed it. I did want to point out a minor thing-the FP system for magic wasn't new with DS3, that was how magic was handled in Demon's Souls. The spells only became numbered in DS1 and DS2. Only difference is that DS3 also uses it for the weapon art/special attacks.
Really enjoying your content man, excited I found this channel! Keep up the fantastic work.
To anyone complaining about Lorian, you have to remember the core mechanic: dodge when the hit HITS, not when the hit STARTS. You're dodging his attack, not his animation. Same could be said for Dragonslayer Armor's janky delayed 2handers, and the Nameless King's incredibly fast second phase with a lot of mixups. Dodge the damage, not the attack.
FROM took this concept of delayed attacks and literally put it on the first major boss of Elden Ring. Well, the panic rolling habit sure died fast.
The one problem with this is the input lag. It is bad, luckily there is a mod on pc. Especialy recomended for sekiro, the game is so much easier and less frustrating
nameless king is basically a skill check. Find out his hit boxes, dodge those. Turn away from his lightning call down attack. And keep hitting him. And also remember that the fight is exceptionally long. So keep calm and keep swinging.
ill say the same thing i said to the other guy that loves Lorian fuck this boss one of two bosses that felt unfair
The flaw in your statement is that not everyone has perfect reflexes, attacks in DS3 are so instant that if you wait till the boss actually swings more often that not you're not gonna roll fast enough.
DS3 was my first Fromsoft title, and I loved it. I absolutely sucked during my first playthrough and I remember getting frustrated a lot, but after a certain point I started enjoying my deaths, and I could actually feel myself getting better at the game. I've probably beaten it 10+ times over the past 6 years, and have done builds with both melee styles and all three caster styles and had about the same amount of fun each time (even if I think they wildly differ in difficulty). By far my favorite parts are the boss fights, especially the DLC bosses (Friede and Gael in particular). Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to DS1/2 or Demon's Souls, but I have experienced most of Bloodborne and Elden Ring, and I think that as games they are just as good in all and all. While Bloodborne is definitely my least favorite of the three, I think that's just down to subjectivity and the fact that medieval fantasy is more appealing to me than gothic horror. I've seen a lot of people comparing DS3 and ER so I figured I'd add in my two cents.
I think the overall combat system in ER is a tad better. Weapon Arts feel useful (or at least relevant) on 90% of weapons I've found in ER compared to like 10% in DS3, horse combat is a nice addition that helps vary the gameplay loop (although this isn't really a strike against DS3, since it's short enough to where it doesn't need it as much), and obviously the proper jump is great for a lot of reasons (jump attack FTW).
I think the story is a little harder for me to choose a victor. I think ER is better at getting me invested in the story of any individual area consistently since NPCs tend to be a little more liberal and clear with info which helps the world feel alive and ancient and the mystery is really enticing for me, but I think the larger story of DS3 is stronger for me, since there are less unanswered questions as to the implications of each ending, and individual characters tend to be more consistently compelling and comprehensive in DS3 (Anri, Gael, Gundyr, and especially Yhorm and Siegward all come to mind as characters with compelling stories that I can also fully understand, whereas I can't think of an ER character I know the full story of even if what little I know does get me invested in them). If I had to choose, I'd probably pick DS3 since I personally connect with characters more than world building. The choice becomes way more definitive if we include the story of the DS trilogy as a whole, since I have learned of DS1's lore via Vaati and that does a better job than either of these games at establishing the world IMO, and having 3 games to draw from definitely helps the story overall.
Design seems to be the most contentious point people are talking about. I think both games do really well in this regard, but since their formats are a fairly different I don't think it's fair to say one is objectively better, even if I have a subjective preference. DS3 feels a lot more "Peaks and Valleys" in terms area design for me. Farron Keep is a level I dread in every playthrough, especially if I want a particular item from that wretched swamp for my build, but ER had yet to give me something I hate that badly. Conversely, no area has wowed me as much as the Ringed City or the Corvian Settlement in ER so far. I probably prefer Elden Ring here though, since I feel like it at least gets close at times to DS3's highs, and is more distant from it's lowest lows. And this is where we get to what is most important to me in a game: Awesome boss fights. The highest highs and lowest lows are almost identical in terms of quality between both games for me. Neither game has a boss that I hate, but they both have a few bosses that I get nothing out of (Gravetender's and Ancient Wyvern in DS3, Godskin Duo, and a number of "Enemy Felled" mini bosses in ER), and they both have bosses I absolutely love such as Gael, Friede, SoC, NK, Gundyr, and Dragonslayer Armor in DS3 and Morgott/Margit, Godfrey, Rykard, Mohg, Rahdan, Maliketh, and the Lichdragon in ER. I can't fully articulate my thoughts on Malenia yet since I haven't beaten her, but I'm loving the feeling of getting a little closer each time I try to fight her and being able to dodge Waterfowl a little more consistently as time goes on, which is how I felt about Midir as well, so I'm guessing I'll be able to say I love both "Optional Superbosses" as well. I feel like both games dip a bit in boss quality in the mid-game for different reasons, but I think both have amazing starts and finishes (discounting Soldier of Godrick lol). Gael and Friede are still my top 2 Fromsoft Bosses though, and I think pound for pound DS3 is better overall than ER, especially if include the "mini bosses" of ER.
Overall I think Elden Ring will probably end up being my favorite one so far if there is DLC that has bosses as amazing as Gael, but for the time being DS3 is probably my preference. Even though I haven't played all of From's souls-likes yet, from what I've seen you could tell me any of them are the best and I don't think I could fully dispute you, all opinions about subjective enjoyment are valid of course, but I'm glad the consensus seems to be that most people enjoy these games as much as I do
DS3 was a reintroduction to the series for me. I played 1 back on 360 when they gave it away for free to Xbox Live Gold members, for a couple hours then gave up because I found it too hard. But playing 3 after my brother told me I should give it a try I don't regret it. DS3 is my favorite FromSoft game and one of my favorite games of all time. The bosses felt so good to finally beat. The Twin Princes probably being my favorite in the game. And since beating DS3, I have beat DS1. But I just love 3 a bit more.
Great video! I'll have ro check out your other stuff.
Finished the game and all the dlc for the first time 1 hour before elden ring dropped. Probably my favorite fromsoft experience.
Finding DS3 is honestly probably one of the best things that's ever happened to my gaming life.
Lorian actually does have tells on what move he'll do when he teleports. After the teleport on you have to look at how he's griping his sword. Each attack his grip is different. Yeah you pretty much have to know the timings of each grip, but once you get it down he'll never hit you unless you just lose track of him.
Again, if he teleports directly behind you, this goes out the window. If he does one of his super fast swings it's impossible to see it coming and deciding to roll early could be bad if instead he does one of his delayed attacks.
I'm playing DS3 for the first time right now, and I am LOVING it. I'm only SL40 rn, going through the Cathedral of the Deep. Abyss Watchers are my favorite fight so far, and it only took me 4 attempts.
Certainly more linear than DS1, but I am really enjoying this game
I love elden ring and had a blast playing through it. With that being said I think souls with an open world just kills the balance of the bosses. I felt like like every boss I fought I was either highly over leveled or highly underleveled after godrick.
And it seems like the shardbearer or whatever they call the story bosses are much easier than some of the random bosses you run into. I get it that there really is no "intended path through elden ring so it had to be frustratingly difficult to balance but that is the reason I feel a metroidvania- half open world like ds1 compliments these games the best. Honestly if you took all the legacy dungeons like stormveil castle and volcano manor and lumped them all into a game I think it would be better for it. I did love the exploration and having torrent but I would sacrifice all that for tightly designed levels with great well balanced boss fights. I almost feel like elden ring is the closest to ds2 even though it obviously shares more with ds3. As far as the bosses are concerned it feels like quantity over quality and that is how ds2 felt imo. I also think ds3 has better pvp. The only invading Co op sucks and the taunters tongue gives you no incentive to use it and I've never been invaded with it on and you have to re use it every time you sit at a grace. Ds3 aged very well and I think I like it more now than I did previously.
I agree, it’s but not hard to see why given how vastly different player power levels can be.
I will say I went elden ring expecting some of the complex level design to be sacrificed. But that was completely wrong, the dungeon areas are right up there with dark 3 and Bloodborne for great design. Vertical, dense, levels
tbh I wish they gated some power progression in the early game behind bosses
What are legacy dungeons? Like theres no old version of elden ring so what are you talking about?
@@flute136 haven't played er but from what I've heard they are more closed in and claustrophobic levels more akin to the older souls games. As opposed to the open world nature of er
@@yuvaanrajganesarethinam4548 ah ok thanks for answering
Soul of Cinder has to be my favorite, though Twin Princess and even the Abyss Watchers are amazing. This was my first Souls game, and I loved every second of it and still do to this day
DS3 helped me through a very difficult time in my life, so it means a lot to me to this day. Ive beaten 1,3, Demon Souls, Elden Ring, Bloodborne. But I think DS3 is still my favorite. Glad to see other people with the same thoughts.
I dont see the issue with twin princes ngl i always found that fight really fair, like a test of your reflexes honed throughout the entire game until that point
I’m proud of you going from for honor to this kind of content. Honestly in my opinion great change! My fave UA-camr
I realized the other day I’ve been playing souls games for almost a decade. It’s been crazy to see how much the fandom has grown in the past 2 or 3 years. I’m glad so many people have been able to experience these titles and appreciate them like myself and the other vets. Praise the sun!
I just picked up elden ring and thinking of buying some of the older souls games. Should I start back at DS1? Or ds3?
@@Slugonthese Dark Souls 3 will feel the most familiar and is my personal favorite game in the series. Dark Souls 1 is great but very different to the games that come after it. DS1 also has a decent chunk of experimental areas and mechanics that never came back since people didn't enjoy them. I would go with DS3 first because you are likely to enjoy it more than DS1 after coming from Elden Ring.
@@Slugonthese start at ds1
@@Slugonthese I would say start w ds1 so you can know the context of what’s happening in ds2 and 3. Also it has the best level design
God after trudging thru Elden Rings 90 hit combo, input reading, infinite FP, Pontiff/Dancer/Gael hybrid bosses DS3 feels like a breath of fresh air.
yeah, after fighting morgott, pontiff's combos don't feel too bad anymore...
plus malenia is basically friede on crack, i'm kinda scared how crazy the endgame-fast-lady-boss will be in the next fromsoft souls game, provided we get one after ER
@@naiiin6949 I’ll take a Friede & Maria double team inside of DragonRiders arena over getting my ass reamed by Malenia again.
FS next barefoot overpowered mistress will have Malenia’s speed, Radahns height, Godskin Apostles input reading ability, Radagons pubes, and a fucking tail cuz why not..
@@griffiththechad9483 and malekith's damage and godfrey's amount of aoe attacks and grabs
Boss input reading has been a thing since DS1, try healing against Gwyn lol
Feels good to play something easy again eh?
I went back to DS3 recently too, and I have to say, play it with one of the popular overhaul mods. It's a much better experience.
I might buy ds3 just for mods because it’s going to be awhile till ER gets crazy mods
Thank you so much for this video! This is one of my favorite games ever, my favorite in the Dark Souls series, and it's always good seeing it getting the love it deserves!
What i really like about ER, is that it really takes up a lot from the school of DS2. A lot of mechanisms and things really remind me of what DS2 couldve been, and it shows with the sub-director being the DS2 director
Ds2 is still good. It was an experiment.
DS2 was far too ambitious for its time. The concepts they had were genuinely incredible, like the original design of the Gutter and the journey you go through in the sewers to actually get there like in the trailers. Unfortunately, hardware limitations and scheduling issues from Bandai are a bitch. I’m glad Elden Ring actually embraced some of DS2’s design. It brings the whole series together beautifully.
DS2 still better than DS3
I’ve always said Ds2 should of been called DeS 2. Ds3 has the same mechanics as Ds1
@@mad3721 funny
I’m ashamed to say I only recently discovered your content, which is amazing. As a visual designer and gallery hosted painter, I would also like to mention to all players that are starting with Elden Ring and are blown away by how beautiful the art direction is, Dark Souls 3 (and 1) is a MUST play for many reasons, but to appreciate how amazing From Software’s visual design and art skills really are. Elden Ring is so gorgeous because From understands art and design trends that other companies don’t and implements them well. Like one beautiful thing that most players may not even notice, every area in Elden Ring has its own unique color palette. Limgrave? Built in a vibrant green palette. Liurnia? Deep blue palette. Caelid? An Auburn palette with faded notes. These really help deliver the story of each area as well as giving you a great visual distinction in where exactly you are. Their games are filled with tons of these simple, but deeply impactful art choices that you may not notice if you don’t work in that specific field, but you look at and just now this is a true work of art. Which is where the beauty of the Souls franchise comes in. It’s a direct visual contrast to Elden Ring. Elden Ring has this visual theme that the world is not in the best shape, but it isn’t beyond hope. There’s still beauty in its world, a sense of nobility (even small touches like being able to add capes to armor as well as the armor itself using more polished metals and regality.) The Souls games contrast this by giving you a world that’s really on its last breath before dying. You’re in this world with art direction that makes you question “is this a world that’s even worth saving?” They follow so many excellent art and design trends in those games as well, but almost go in the opposite direction. There’s no nobility and regal nature to be found, except for flickers of it from older days (like Gwyn and Nameless King. Their design shows they were once truly something to marvel at, but now, they’re literally husks adorned in once majestic armor that’s falling apart.) Instead of Elden Ring where you’re in a world that still has hope, still has life, and still has a reason to be saved. There’s hope for it, Dark Souls gives you a world that’s been unnaturally prolonged and preserved in the wrong state for so long that the world itself is rejecting this state, and falling apart. Even armor design in Souls tells this story. There’s no regality like in Elden Ring. All of the iconic armor sets in Souls aren’t adorned in polished silver and gold like in Elden Ring, and the sets in Souls that have gold and silver appear worn down, non polished, and used for function not to display a sense of status. That’s the theme of the armor in souls. It’s visuals show that they’re only meant to serve a function, not show status. And the world design uses varying palettes as well, but in a way that’s oppressive and again, makes you question why should you even save this world?
From Software are masters of art direction and the Souls games are a beautiful contrast to Elden Ring in many way, including art direction. Take this guy’s advice, his incredible video should’ve convinced you already. They’re worth diving into.
Edit: another beautiful little thing From included in certain boss fights in Souls that (to my knowledge) are not in Elden Ring is empathy driven story telling in the fights themselves. In the end of Sif’s fight he begins to limp and he goes from a difficult foe to a creature you now feel sadness and pity for and you just want to get the fight over with because it makes you feel like a monster.
In 3 there’s the Old Demon King. A lot of players may kill him so quickly you’ll miss this, but after that large explosion attack he’ll do at the end of his health bar you’ll see his entirely burned out, barely enough energy to swing his weapon and this being, who is the last remnant of his entire race, is reduced to this pathetic state of a once king that can’t even find the strength to swing his weapon. It’s subtle, but beautiful storytelling without a single word.
I know that part about Old Demon King. on my every subsequent playthroughs, I took off my weapon after he exploded and proceeded to beat him to death with my bare fists.
Elden Ring is good and all but I honestly think the main boss lineup in DS3 is far better, even with boring fights like yhorm and greatwood
lol
Honestly I agree. Elden Ring is nothing short of amazing, but I had more fun with DS3 bosses
Rykard from Elden Ring was definitely a better evolution of the special weapon gimmick than Yhorm was, though. Otherwise, I'd probably agree.
Only facts here, but yhorm was a awesome looking fight
I think DS3 is much more consistent than ER in the boss topic. Even though ER had some great fights and some that even perfected past ideas from DS3, like Yhorm/Rykard as someone else mentioned.
Dark souls is really true art like this is more than just a game and proved yes games are a form of art
23:40 - I disagree! I quickly learned that Lorian ALWAYS teleports to the same position relative to your character, and the animation before the teleport tells you which attack he is about to do. So you know the attack and the location before it happens, and when he ported I already knew how to dodge the incoming attack.
But the big instant kill where he can teleport to any random location and you either manage to camera him or die, is absolutely freaking BS....
You can literally see in his clips how he starts the wind up for attack 2, teleports and then does attack 5. What are you talking about?
This got me into the series as well. I personally think it is still my favorite. The overall boss quality, the music, the PVP are all things I look back on fondly.
im amazed at the thoughts on twin princes. they are my favorite fight and i always felt they were extremely fair with my only gripe being that they could be harder, never even noticed the animation stuff since ive always been fine dodging. the fight had a certain rhythm to it that once you get down it just clicks
Something about DS3's fights against the Irithyllians like Vordt, Dancer, and Sulyvahn will never be captured by another game, and that's okay. Because it just goes to show how much strength in presentation DS3 has.
Twin princess take = skill issue, it is such a phenomenal fight, the fact that the player has to make a decision as to where to dodge mere instants before the attack lands depending on lorian's pose post-teleportation is genius, his wind-up pre-teleportation is meaningless, demanding such high concentration makes this fight truly exhilarating and satisfying to overcome. The so- called inconsistency attributed to this boss is what makes this fight remarkable. In regards to the camera trouble, the only hiccup for me is simply locking onto lorian upon first entering the arena before he teleports to attack (which i always succeed in doing but the time frame is still very narrow), the times the lock-on vanishes is when he casts his holy sword attack and when entering the second phase with lothric but these have a pretty long wind-ups so locking onto him again really isn't any trouble. (Feel free to point out any grammatical mistakes i may have let slip since english is not my first language👍)
One thing I definitely recommend for any player that owns a PC copy of DS3: Try the big three Overhauls for DS3, Cinders, Convergence and Champion Ashes. Every one of them brings the game to a new level and fix DS3 in their ow way. Cinders brings a multitude of From Software content to the game and make a lot more builds not only viable, but fun as hell; Convergence focus on magic combat e map redesigns, changing routes and progression drastically; Champion Ashes bring new mechanics, some Bloodborne weapons and a focus in PvP balance.
I'm so glad I gave this game a chance. I love this game.
When Elden Ring came out i started to play Dark Souls 3 again after having given up on it 2 hours in 4 years ago. And it catched me and taught me a completely new mentality in gaming. The value of challenge even if it may cost you time and nerves, the reward is always worth it. After having "finished" my first playtrough a couple of days ago, watching this video now is blowing my mind. The smouldering lake, the wyverns, gael and the nameless king are all things i did not manage to find. Knowing now that there is more i will try to be more cautious in my second playtrough.
Gael is the final boss in the DLC for the game titled “The Ringed City”
It’s crazy I bought ds3 near the end of 2021 cause I needed to get back into a souls game since I hadn’t played bloodborne in years. It’s crazy how good the game still is today especially when compared to elden ring.
If i have to be honest. Dark souls III is better than Elden Ring in many aspects.
@@ValentinPagliari hard disagree as a massive bloodborne enjoyer I think it wipes ds3 off it’s feet and elden ring is just more expansive than ds3. Ringed city is my fav dlc tho fs
@@DCshandle Yes is expansive, huge, nice exploration. But the combat and bosses are better in ds3 imo. I have never played bloodborne. I will wait to a pc port, i guess.
@@ValentinPagliari The bloodborne combat is a lot more fast and parried based. Hope you can enjoy the game one day, it’s atmosphere is on another level. Respect your opinion ds3 is still an amazing game to me
Abyss watchers is my favorite boss fight of any game ever. Absolutely incredible and I wish I could re experience when I first went up against them and freaked out when the others rose
In my top 10 list of from bosses it's still 2. Sister Friede & 1. Gael, despite Elden ring
There's something therapeutic about hearing people talk about the general systems surrounding souls games, maybe because they're already so ingrained into my working knowledge.
"Therapeutic". Jesus, the nonsense you m0r0ns spout about this franchise never cease to amaze
@@jihigh482 Rude...
Interesting. I actually love the Twin Princes fight. Further I feel like Elden Ring bosses have a lot of these seeming inconsistencies in their move sets. I still can't tell when Malenia does her dash into sword flurry, why the direct follow up attack is sometimes fast and other times delayed. And its too badly telegraphed to dodge by reaction alone, at least for me.
Ds3 was the first dark souls game I played and beat, I’ll always remember beating Nameless King on my 15th try and how hype I was. Probably the best gaming moment I’ve ever had
Anri and Horace are an awful example at not knowing where to find NPCS. They literally tell you that they are going to Irythill, which can be found through the catacombs that follow the Farron Keep lmao.
Of the 3 main DS games this one is my favorite. Thanks for capturing in 60fps, looks amazing.
I like the review, but I have never thought the Princes were unfair. I think you locking on is messing with you in that fight.
I agree. I also think that using a shield is a totally fine thing to do too. I used to think using a shield was a crutch, but if you know how to dodge then using a shield is a great tool for attacks that have tricky timing.
This souls game is honestly my favorite of the FromSoft library I think. I love Bloodborne for its overall gameplay mechanics, but Dark Souls 3 has several of my most favorite bosses of any game ever. Abyss Watchers, The Dancer of the Boreal Valley, and The Twin Princes.
i actually love the twin princes I've gone at them so much I've carved their timings into my brain, but yeah it's definitely a little insane for a new player, especially a first time soulsborne player (i started with bloodborne so i was used to the fast combat)
Elden Ring was my first "souls" game and I absolutely loved it. I decided to go play DS3 because I was craving more new content.
While I can appreciate some of the quality of life improvements in ER, Im loving DS3 as well.
I have no idea how I missed these. I loved the Darksiders games, especially 2.
Looking forward to er dlc.
I don't agree with some of your statements on Lorian. The way you have to react is extremely consistent, especially after the teleport. It's my favorite boss because in no other fight the dodge feels this satisfying. Overall this video reminded me just how much I love this game, especially the lore and themes.
Lorian and Dragonslayer are the two best main bosses in my opinion that feel REAL satisfying when you dodge them.
@@tbone551 I'd say it's Lorian and Champion Gundyr. Being able to dodge every single one of his highly agressive attacks makes you feel like a god.
For me anyways, the camera lock on for Lorian is always very consistent. On the normal teleport moves where he teleports and stabs, the camera stays locked, it only unlocks when he teleports far away to do the really long charged holy smash attack, it forces you to look around quickly for Lorian to not get hit by it.
Actually the reason lorian is crippled is because of his fight with the demon prince. It's also the reason his sword is on fire
Aaackshoowly
The point you made about Lorian is funny. I found it was a learning curve. It forced you to improve your reaction time and rewire your brain to roll when you're about to get hit, not when the charge up starts. I'd say the twin princes is even top 3 for me.
you do go to londor in the dlc, its implied and shown that londor is the ringed city, also known as courland. Londor was its original name as stated and shown by the architecture. The marriage sword is on the tops of the buildings for instance. courland was its later name
It's definitely not the case.
Where would the sable church be???
Isn't Yuria from Londor???
What? There's no evidence whatsoever implying Londor is the Ringed City. The fact both were influenced by the same ideas (defiance to the gods, Kaathe's Dark Lord credo, etc) doesn't mean they are the same. The lore coming from their items indicate completely different societies. Londor is probably an extension of, or inspired by, the legends of New Londo, while Ringed City was created by Gwyn himself.
Good shit. Found your channel after YT dropped your Prey 2017 vid in my feed. Coincidentally, that game is in my top 5 and I enjoyed your take, so here I am watching a one-hour vid about a game from a series I’m not what some may call “a die-hard fan” of. Keep at it!
As someone who tried and failed to play Dark Souls back in 2012, Dark Souls III really was the first Souls game I found success in back in 2016 (and I still quit 15 hours in while fighting against High Lord Wolnir because I was such a scrub)
However, after playing through all the Souls games two summers ago, I think it’s fair to say that Dark Souls III is truly the best Souls game for newcomers.
Dark Souls has a grueling first third with a difficult learning curve (for its sloooowww gameplay) and little to no direction (for someone entirely new to the souls series), Dark Souls II has the jankiest combat and most uninspired level design/mob encounters (also your health lowers every time you die until you use a limited resource to restore it, what’s up with that?) and Bloodborne has two incredibly difficult starting bosses. Demon’s Souls I’ve never played, but would be eager to hear how it is for newcomers to the series.
I would honestly put Elden Ring into an entirely different category. If someone played a Dark Souls game, but wanted a taste of something with improved gameplay and more open-ended level design… well then Elden Ring is your game. But for someone going in blind to the series, I also think Elden Ring is a fair starting point, as it’s the most accessible that I’ve ever seen of a Souls game. Certain gameplay features are explained that never would have been before, and there’s STILL so much depth to Elden Rings combat, exploration, and quests for more hardcore players.
The bottom line is that Elden Ring, much like Dark Souls III, is accessible to newcomers and hardcore Souls fans alike, and it will hold up for a long, long time.
None of this is true because the games have been getting faster and faster over time. The most accessible games are the older ones, because they reward careful gameplay, which is the default for most newcomers. Further, Elden Ring is literally the most BS game in FromSoft's catalogue, even moreso than Sekiro (which I think is their best game).
Furthermore, Elden Ring is inherently more aimless than older games because it's open world. The game has a serious lack of cohesion.
But if you mean 'easiest for a newcomer to play for three hours without ragequitting before moving on entirely,' I would agree.
@@Grangolus I disagree with everything you just said. Let’s fight IRL, meet me in the parking lot
Nice work as always. Glad I discovered you through that elden ring vid
My favorite in the series will always be DS1, I still remember asking the GameStop employee for a game that was similar to zelda but for the Xbox, and he recommended DS as it had just released that week. I returned the game 3 days later cause I couldn’t pass the first Taurus demon(this was before the big patch that made the game slightly easier). A couple months later I purchased the game again because i couldn’t stop thinking About it. All these years later and I wish I could relive that moment.
Ngl the twin brothers may be my favorite fight in this game and probably one of my favorite fights in the whole fromsoftware universe
Love Elden Ring a lot, but oddly enough it’s existence just has me really nostalgic about the games that came before it. Like I just recently played DS3, but for some reason it as well as the other games seem so far removed from where we are now. Maybe it’s because Elden Ring is so huge. Either way DS3 will probably remain my favorite. Elden Ring is really good and there’s so much to do, but to me it feels like DS3 with a lot of fat. Although there are some great new features and a lot of the areas are simply breathtaking. DS3 is just an all around quality freaking package with hardly any blemishes.
Edit: Elden Ring still has plenty of replay value for a long time to come, but I’m really interested in how the DLCs turn out. The Dark Souls 3 DLCs (particularly Ringed City) elevate the game to even crazier heights of greatness. Bloodborne also had a fantastic DLC and Shulva is one I really enjoy in DS2.
Elden Ring is my first souls game I'm 60 hours into the game and I'm falling in love with the genre! I'm definitely interested in trying Dark Souls 3 !!
I really wish that abyss watchers were a late game boss. Its such an amazing concept for a boss and the basic moveset they've got is great but they're just way too easy.
yep. And I think people overrate them because of the lore
@@conta-fake6723 they're still one of my favorite bosses in the series but I must admit lore, character design and their uniqueness carry the fight. Still though its not a bad fight just too easy for veteran players.
I started with Dark Souls 3 as well and this video really highlights a lot of what got me nearly addicted to souls-borne games as a whole. I think you also deserve far more subs than you have, your content is fucking fantastic so keep it up!
3:30 I used to level up my vitality because it raises my equip load allowing me to do fast rolls even if i had a heavier armor or weapon... Fast rolls comes out faster, you have more i frames and you can dodge further
fast rolls and medium rolls have the same amount of I-frames i believe, its just that fast rolls cover greater lengths of distance in the span of the roll, I think
DS3 is in my opionion the best Souls game. It might be an unpopular opinion but I just love its grey and depresing atmosphere. And the voice acting. Everytime I hear "rise if you would, for that is our curse" I get so much goosebumps. Firekeepers voice is just ... perfect. Sister Friede's voice and soundtrack in that fight is also perfection.
Elden ring might be overall a better game with better mechanics, graphics and much more content and I enjoyed it A LOT, but there's something in DS3 that really does it for me.
Can't say I agree about the item descriptions. It's not an awful way to deliver story, and it's far from the only way to pick it up. Besides a few standout items, the npcs tell you everything you need to know. I think a bigger problem is the attention span and vocabulary of most players
didn't expect a roast of game journalists. nice
I finish DS1, DS3, ER in last 6 month and I feel I can not go back replaying DS after ER. The skill is too attractive.
Lorian I'd disagree, but could because I never paid attention to his hand movements and more of his actual attacks.
Also I see a minority, a loud but still minority of people who say "this game should have been bashed because it's a copy and past" I never got this, do then mean weapons and armor than I can agree to extent, but if it's gameplay, art, story, tone. then I don't know why you thought the 3RD game would be a complete overhaul of this like bloodborne which is a game before ds3 was made. people played because it's dark souls and this ds had more than enough to feel special on its own way when you take new armor, weapons, bosses location that aren't Anor Londo, music most of it is original and feels unique.
I always loved how Friede will refer to you as the Lord of Londor and how we have our own subjects to rule or something to that affect. Little detail thrown in there that she knows what you are if you do a certain ending.
Dark Souls 3 was way more epic, its soo much better than Elden ring specially the bosses
great retrospective. ds3 was the first fromsoft game i fully completed and having played everything they’ve put out in the miyazaki era i still think it’s incredibly special. when i think about depictions of what hell might be like, i honestly think that ds3 is right up there with dante and bosch
I find that the dark souls series has a clear atmosphere across all games. Elden Ring's atmosphere is a bit awkward somehow.
I never had trouble with Lorian's teleport except at the start when he immediately goes to your back to beat you up. The camera always follows to where he will teleport to unless he wants to do the excalibur move, which also makes it very predictable. I guess the Elden Ring bosses trained me a little too well. Even Lothric's homing magic is easy due to the erdtree avatar using the same move over and over. Heck, the avatars also trained me how to dodge their attacks while running away from the homing magic.
I picked this game up in November of last year and had no idea it would start one of the most fun and enjoyable series I've ever played. I then played DS1 and saw that from software was making a new game. I was so excited and always remember where I first started
I can honestly say I've never had trouble with the camera. Or the Twin Princes, although I can see your points on both. Great job
My biggest gripe with Elden Ring is how many moves enemies have and how they are allocated to seperate categories. Traditionally in the souls series, not every boss would have an AoE, a big swing, a slam (often plus AoE), but in Elden Ring even common normal enemies have that variety. Every fight against one of those anorexic trolls ends up either as a very defensive waiting game to punish some of the attacks, or I end up seeing the abundance of AoEs and slams because I get aggressive. (or they just spam their ranged wind-blast)
Think about common enemies and even mini bosses. Experienced players are going to position based on the enemy they are fighting, but all that is thrown away in Elden Ring, because every moveset is so "well rounded", which means that my intuition leads me to only seeing slams and AoE, with basically no actual physical attacks. I
get that any enemy without a ranged attack just dies to the very strong spellcasting in this game, but I find it very unfulfilling to constantly dodge projectiles as a melee character
To be fair there's a lot of AOE Ash of War in Elden Ring so I don't really have problems in ER enemies & bosses, you just need to adopt in this game that's all....
While my biggest gripe in Ds3 is the fact that the whole level design almost completely linear lv design so you have to beat boss fight order by order in order to make a progress while in Elden Ring I can just immediately skip tutorial boss & being able to skip first area in limgrave just to get all op weapons it's just so much fun & there nothing to stop me to do anything since this is interconnected Open World Games
Slams and AOEs were added to account for the new mechanics of spirit ashes and jump attacks
gitgud grandpa this is 2022
@@g0blinfractal472 I said that the constant AoEs are unfulfilling, not that I cant beat the game
@@nomorepartiezz yeah but they still can't account for that. It just bogs down good bosses.
after spending 200 hours on elden ring i honestly so far enjoy ds3 a lot more. Idk why i just find it more fun
All the soulsekiro games are great, and most are masterpieces.
For me this is the current ranking:
1. Bloodborne
2. Dark Souls
3. Sekiro
4. Dark Souls 3
5. Elden Ring
6. Dark Souls 2
7. Demon's Souls
With ds1, ds3, sekiro and elden ring being all close together, and ds2 and DeS falling a little behind. But without a doubt, bloodborne is the greatest game ever made, suffering only from being a ps4 exclusive and not being able to warp from lamps, but required to go back to the dream always
Demon's Souls being dead last is a maidenless take and is very upsetting
@@ghoulish6125 it’s refreshing tbh. Seeing everyone’s list just be the exact same with DS2 always in dead last is anything but original or unique
@@asketillus8679 its a joke man, I could care less
@@ghoulish6125 I didn't play it back then, and using pcsx3 emulator and having played all other souls games I must place it at the bottom. Still one hell of a game, but it's too outdated. But I can't deny the gloomy atmosphere and some of the best level designs, best hub area...
@@asketillus8679 DS2 is a great game, trully. It's the one I can replay the most because I am in love with it's atmosphere. But cannot really go toe to toe with the games above. Ds3 really polished the game and had the best soundtracks (not better than BB), best bosses and so on...
I replayed ds3 after not being able to play elden ring for a second playthrough (first playthrough was great tho) and i decided to go for platinum this time, got the trophy today and these past two weeks made me realize why ds3 always was my favorite souls game.
The Lothric Princes are actually an amazing fight, the issue is you can't play them like most others in Souls. Took me until my second run to realize that you aren't supposed to reliably dodge and hit.
You learn the timings for dodging and eventually spot openings (bc they'll consistently pause after certain combos). Once I learned that the fight became one of my favorites. I can actually get to the second phase without damage. You just need to keep dancing around him until he runs out of stamina.
But it's hard to get used to that when so many bosses allow for a dodge or 2 then a hit consistently. You have to think about his attacks as a really long combo and be patient.
I wish we Will get Dark Souls 4 someday! Such an amazing series!
The fp bar was the best addition from Dark Souls 3 from a gameplay perspective.
So before I watch this, I'm going to state my opinion on DS3. It is the greatest game I've ever played. It is my favourite. Hands down, no contest even with two playthroughs of Eldin Ring. Best combat, balance, lore, bosses, community, story and feel. I will forever love my Millwood Greatbow duels in the Ringed City, getting lucky in Irithyll of the Boreal Valley and not being ganked as an invaders there, salty gankers quitting out.
So, to be a bit more serious; DS3 has Eldin Ring beaten in several regards, but the most important is boss experience. I think that too many late bosses in Eldin Ring have health bars that are way too big (at least if you aren't using extremely strong setups). Melenia to be frank, has to much health alongside her gimmick of health steal. The easiest boss comparison I can think of is Sister Friede. Does anyone complain about Friede's health bar? Not really, its her stamina that's complained about (This is an issue for Melenia as well, alongside input reading. At least put a small delay on the reaction From Soft. I can lock her into the stab for as many heals as I have. I've done this on purpose, several times). Friede has three phases, the last one being among the best fights I've ever had fashionsouling as Ornstein, that all have well telegraphed attacks and clear ranges for each of her attacks alongside each gimmick of the individual phase.
Like, I get the desire to make bosses harder, but increasing health dramatically isn't how you do that. Why does the final boss have so much health that light weapons can be mistaken for doing no damage despite being fully upgraded and having properly invested stats? Also why is the Fitness Gram Pacer Test a boss? Sure, Midir was a bit like that, but the charges that moved him across his arena were attacks to be dodged, not him just repositioning. Also having a smaller arena meant he could run off to the other side of the arena and it didn't take half a minute to reach him.
My favourite bosses from both have to be Godfrey and Champion Gundyr. I get the same feeling of joy when fighting them, both are rather unique in that several of their attacks move them sideways rather that straight at or away from you, which means they have a unique ability to maintain spacing favorable to them, something pretty hard to overcome. Godfrey's arena wide, unblockable stomps being dodge-able by jumping, which means more stance damage as you can jump attack while he stomps, is similar to being able to read Gundyr's kick of tracking and punishing it consistently. Honestly, at this point, Godfrey's stomps are just free damage. I can Bolt of Gransax AoW, or Loreta's Slash to avoid it while still doing damage.
Regardless, Godfrey's health is probably the most fair of the final run of bosses, but that might be just how I fight the dude.
Radaboyo could do with less AoE's. He has like four attacks that don't explode in some way.
FG and EB are really bad health sponges though.
I should probably watch the video...