P4

Dark Souls 3 Review

Opening / Platform

Dark Souls 3 is a game developed by ‘FromSoftware’ and then published by ‘FromSoftware’ and ‘Bandai Namco Entertainment’. The platform I played the game on is on Steam, meaning I played this game on a PC rather than a console which is fine, the only issues that I faced with playing on PC were issues with the controller disconnecting, and I noticed that all PC controls were shown as an Xbox controller, which didn’t matter too much for me since I was using Xbox controller but could’ve been a bit of a disadvantage when using a Playstation controller. The other platforms this game can be played on are the Xbox One and PS4. With that being said let’s continue the rest of the review.

Genre

The categories that this game falls are that of three genres, Action Role-Playing, Adventure and Fantasy. The way this game falls into these categories is as follows. It’s a Action Role-Playing for the environment you’re set in, you’ve been placed in this big world containing action and combat with it’s array of weapons and soccoreies as you play as a character created by yourself. It falls into the Adventure category since you play this game through it’s progression, you defeat these large Bosses to progress yourself further through the game and discover all these new a unique places for each area containing a Boss. And lastly is falls under Fantasy for that of obvious reasons of being contained in a world full of monsters, swords, dragons and soccories. When compared to other games, an easy comparison that can be made is to Skyrim. While it contains the many elements that are similar to Skyrim it still manages to stand out from the Souls series being known for its extremely challenging gameplay.

Narrative

Within Dark Souls their contains a deep, long and intriguing story full of interesting characters and stories that help build the foundation of Dark Souls story, with story so deep if a mechanical glitch is found in the game there is most likely a story explanation for it. But for this being the 3rd game of the story, it all begins in the first game.

It starts in world of darkness not so oddly called the ‘Age of Darkness’ with the world be ruled over by the Stone Dragons. And then fire appeared, the ‘First Flame’, with the fire it brough 4 lord souls. The Soul of Death granted to ‘Nito’, the Life Souls found by the Witch of Izalith, furtive pygmy progenitor of humanity found the Dark Soul, and lastly Gywn, the Lord of Light who had found the Light Soul. ‘Nito’, ‘Izalith’ and ‘Gywn’ fought against the Stone Dragons for rule over the land, and begun the ‘Age of Fire’. Later in the future the ‘First Flame’ begun to fade and lead to undead humans rising, as time further progressed the longer these undead humans stayed alive turned them into these zombie like creatures called ‘Hollows’. ‘Gywn’ than sacrifices himself and link the ‘First Flame’ to extend the ‘Age of Fire’ so rid of the return of the ‘Age of Darkness’. Your character, is that of a undead human, a chosen undead, is tasked to defeat the holders of the Lord Souls, obtain the Souls and then link the ‘First Flame’ to further extend the ‘Age of Fire’ just like ‘Gywn’ had.

And then the cycle would be repeated in the other 2 Souls games, in Dark Souls 3 you are a chosen undead from the fading away of the ‘First Flame’. You are tasked to obtain the Lord Souls, link the ‘First Flame’ and extend the ‘Age of Fire’.

Characters

For this game having lot of story within it, the dialogue you share between characters usually don’t actually contain anything about the games story within them. Some characters in the game contain ‘questlines’ which contain these characters own stories, these ‘questlines’ progress as you play through the game, but it is very possible to mess up ‘questlines’ and cancel them out if parts of the game have been completed at different times in comparison to the ‘questline’. Such as the fan favourite ‘Siegward of Catarina’. Where you meet him in the first world of the game after the intro. Your able to continue his ‘questline’ by helping him out against a ‘Mini-Boss’. However, if you progress too far into the game without helping him, he will be gone and you would’ve canceled his questline, unable to continue it unless you play the game again.

Gameplay

The gameplay of this game can be picked up farrelly quickly since in the beginning of the game consists of messages displaying the controls of the game. But it can be simple to be picked up and then can even be mastered. While the games movements controls are very basic such as running left, right, up and down, deciding whether to sprint as well which affects stamina. And other controls such as roll dodging, that mainly it when talking about movement. But the game has parts of the controls which lead you to mastering it, each weapon consists of what the game calls ‘Weapon Arts’ where holding a certain attack button can trigger an attack that is unique and dedicated to that weapon. As well as the function of parrying, you are able to parry certain attacks the stun the enemy attacking and do a large attack right back at them, this is the big control that defines mastering the controls, parrying requires precision timing and is different for every weapon you face yourself against.

Target Audience

With this game being the third installment of the Souls series it’s already obvious that the series had generated audience for themselves. But for it’s original target audience when first started out I would estimate that the most popular age for this game is close to it’s actually age rating, that being a 16+ game. When finding other players of this game you never tend to find anyone under the age of 16 and would most likely find people within the age of early to late 20’s. But when it comes to gender popularity for this game, you mainly only ever find the fanbase being largely male. I would say what interest these people would have is the sense of challenge, when people tend to talk about a Souls game they find themselves talking about how challenging the game is, and the series has built a reputation around this with people usually comparing any difficult game the ‘Dark Souls’ of that genre. When people go to pick up a Souls game they tend to understand what their getting themselves into, and it’s those people who are willing for it’s challenge.

Recommendation

My personal feeling towards this game is mainly enjoyment, I love the world that is created within the game, I love the endless possibilities in variety on how you go on beating the game with all the different weapons and socceries you can obtain. My only issue that sparked with me while playing the game for the first time was it’s extreme challenge, getting into it felt like a nightmare and I didn't think I could get any further after getting killed and killed time again from the Boss. But after a while something clicks, you start understanding the move set of these Bosses and what weapons do the best against them, The game has this amazing sense of progression and really makes your character feel stronger as you continue through the game.

Ratings

The story is deep and extremely interesting, different characters have different relations with people that make up the whole story of Dark Souls with also every character you meet being extremely unique and everyone has a purpose, no one is ever there by mistake. When it comes to the Story of Dark Souls I would give it a 5/5.

The graphics for Dark Souls always push what they can achieve for the time the games were made in, and just keep getting more and more mechanically advanced as they continue. While Dark Souls doesn’t have the most ‘real’ looking characters is manages to create its own style and deep colour pallet which bring the world to life, and with always the best looking backgrounds and scenery I’ve seen in games. I would give Dark Souls graphics a 5/5.

I have replayed Dark Souls 3 over a least 5 times now, while the game can be lengthy I always manage to miss something that makes me want to replay the game and perfect everything, as well as all the character questlines you can come back and complete. Even when playing this game multiple times the game still does an amazing job and getting stronger as you play the game. For Dark Souls 3s replayability I would give it a 4/5.