Collecting My Thought on Dark Souls 3—Seems Familiar... or Losing Sanity?

The Dark Souls series is notorious for being unfriendly to newcomers. For that I cannot fully extol it. But once you find your way into its lore, there is no going back. Immaculately written, you will be hard-pressed to find a fantasy world more twisted and fascinating. Not only that, players get to help interpret the story to others by leaving corrupt tweet-like messages that permeate into their worlds. These help allay some of the stifling, albeit imperative, sense of uncertainty the games create through elliptical item descriptions and foreboding character monologues.

In Dark Souls 3, the setting is more closely related to the original than Dark Souls 2 was. Past characters are constantly referenced and even reemerge; certain areas feel quite familiar, triggering a ceaseless discharge of agonising memories; and once again, obstinate higher beings are sought to rekindle the fading Flame. Despite the similarities, the level design on a macro level is dissimilarly linear and uninspired. Seems gone are the days of labyrinthine glory that used to reflect well the interwoven nature of the Dark Souls world. On top of this shortcoming, each boss battle has been largely crafted from the same trite two-phase mould. Although to be fair, the inter-phase transition of some battles strongly reiterate the lore, notably the Abyss Watchers and the Twin Princes, and so I have to reserve some criticism for that. But in the end, all this still adds up to a nostalgic but somewhat unsatiating sequel that ironically makes you wish you were playing the original game instead.

That is not to say Dark Souls 3 is not enjoyable. One can still experience over 100 hours of lord-seeking RPG without running into a dry spell. The mechanics also feel cleaner and more polished (or more conservative you could say), showing FromSoftware's maturity in the development of the series. Perhaps what is needed for any future iteration is a sort of reimagination—kind of like what Bloodborne was. If there was ever a chance to zhoosh things up to avoid stagnation, this is it. Now is not the time to be resting on laurels.

#FavouriteBoss Abyss Watchers.

#FavouriteBoss Dancer of the Boreal Valley (girl, work on that posture!).

#FavouriteBoss King of the Storm + Nameless King.

#FavouriteBoss Lorian + Lothric.