The cycle of Dark Souls III seems to have no end: From Software has certainly packaged an excellent product, according to many international newspapers the best of the Souls Games. We often wondered during our long gaming session if the title really lived up to those claims: get ready to die with us!
The Eternal Fight!
The light and darkness continue to fight incessantly on the game world of Dark Souls III. On this occasion, our nameless protagonist will have to face the Lords Of Embers that others were only the first to have rekindled the flame of the world. Through the lands of Kingdom of Lothric our journey will unravel until the culmination of the choice: to seat the old Lords on the five thrones or to extinguish the flame of the world forever ... or is there another way? The arduous task of making this choice is up to you.
Weak, Fragile but Tenacious
The feeling you get when pad in hand we are about to face the title challenge From Software is summarized in the title of this paragraph: we have often felt useless and not very resistant but the tenacity and the desire to move forward have kept us alive .... most of the time! The game is in our opinion excessively punitive, often it is enough to fail to recognize a single pattern of the opponent that this will tear our character to shreds. Unlike what happened in the first chapter of Dark Souls, where a mistake was punished with serious damage or death of the protagonist, here we will often find ourselves without the flasks of Estus, due to the extensive damage suffered. Do not be under any illusions: even as you progress in the game the damage you will receive will always be large so you will have to learn well how to deal with a certain enemy, use the environment to your advantage and if possible manage the one-on-one combat in order to limit the damage if the enemy penetrate your defense. Other times the enemies appear behind us without us noticing which can be seen from an interesting side because it keeps the player on the "who lives", from another point of view it is slightly frustrating. In the game we will find many of the old enemies of the saga, who has played the first Souls will certainly smile more than once which makes the world of Lothric really come alive.
New Ways To Fight
The proverbial Mana bar is back in the series: this one was first removed because it was inconsistent on the characters who did not use magic, today it is back on the throne! The Mana will in fact also be used for characters not addicted to magic because thanks to the new system of "pose", Which is reached by pressing the L2 button (on Sony PlayStation 4 where we tested the game), our character will assume a particular position for each weapon and pressing the relative attack keys, light or heavy, will result in a real move or combo that will consume part of the mana. The idea is interesting even if at the very first levels a little useful because the reaction speed of our enemies and the low amount of health will put you in the condition of wanting to parry or dodge an enemy attack more often than you want to hit it with your pose. ! The Backstab, if you prefer, is present and slightly modified: the window to carry out this attack from behind is very narrow and varies from enemy to enemy, some of which must be hit lightly on the side, not exactly perpendicular to their shoulders so to speak. Many have blown the trumpets, thinking that the new title of Miyazaki was nothing more than a copy of Bloodborne with elements a la Dark Souls: nothing further from the truth! The absence of the Regain System, true focus of Bloodborne gameplay where once hit, we could recharge our health by "stealing" life from our opponent, makes it clear right away that every hit counts! Yes, dodging is possible in the title and it's one of the main components on dexterity-based characters like Magicians, Heralds and Pyromancers but in any case you can't manage the entire game on this mechanic: any character will necessarily have to equip a shield, in order to stem the damage that will inevitably suffer. We could now open an infinite chapter on the quantity and quality of the weapons present in Dark Souls III: to list them all would be tedious but we can tell you that you will never get bored and that you can in any case change your fighting style starting with short swords, long swords, clubs, axes, spears and halberds, bastard swords, colossal greatswords and greatswords, magician's sticks , fist weapons and even shields aimed at attack as well as defense. There will obviously be "special" weapons which, as a rule, will be obtained by defeating the bosses and using their special souls to build your favorite weapon: these weapons will have, in addition to a peculiar skin, extended powers and damage compared to their counterparts.
Pros and Cons
Rather than making you a real list of strengths and weaknesses we will tell you the following: the game is excellent if played on Sony o Microsoft products, the problem arises when the eye falls on a PC. The fighting machine that supports Steam, the PC in fact, makes the From Software title seen on consoles look ten years old: the fluidity of the clothes, the movement on the screen, the grass and the water surpass even the work of Bloodborne, indeed they outclass it. Keep in mind that on consoles you will often see sudden drops in frame rate, so much so that you could die while attempting a dodge that will never come to an end as well as losing some diopter in the progress of the action. We hope for a prompt fixing by Bandai-Namco. In addition to the technical aspect, the game suffers from a lack of farming zones: the title requires a lot of level up of the character to be able to be dealt with in the best way, in addition to the fact that you will also have to level your weapons and armor which in any case will cost you souls. The problem arises when you understand that normal monsters will give you an average of 30 to 50 souls, monsters already much stronger give about 600 but it is still not very balanced when compared to the very high risk of death against these vile beasts! Let's hope in a ready patch to balance our efforts.
Comrades in Arms
Like any Souls title, the friends component is fundamental: we could also play here with our friends and be invaded by adversary "ghosts" who will try to steal the embers or the souls we have accumulated! Also in this adventure they have inserted a gap of levels to allow us to play with other players: we could in fact request the help of someone who has a maximum of ten levels of disparity with us, so if we are for example at level twenty, the player who will join our group can be from level ten to thirty. The same goes for the enemies who will invade us but do not worry: you can have up to five companions in your party so whoever invades you will be at a clear disadvantage. In our session we noticed that if you have more people in the party, there is a greater chance of being invaded, plus the health of the enemies will increase based on the number of players in our game! Speaking instead of Boss Fight these will be varied and satisfying with respectable Bosses ranging from the giant titan to the medium humanoid up to the lousy monster coming out of who knows what pindaric flight of Miyazaki's imagination. Each boss has two phases, like an aspect of Bloodborne that we also appreciate here: once a certain health threshold is reached, the enemy will change the attack pattern but sometimes even the scenario will change, perhaps hitting the floor hard and making us fall into a hidden cave. Facing a Boss with friends is always a good choice that we invite you to keep in mind.
Conclusion
Dark Souls III is a superlative title: there is little to do, apart from a slight feeling of deja-vu at the beginning of the title, the rest from the story to the sound and the game capture and encourage self-improvement always and constantly. We could easily define the game as the eighth symphony of Hidetaka Miyazaki that manages with all its polygons to amaze us, reinvent itself and never get bored. Innovative elements such as poses for example, and the use of ash as a temporary enhancement (until you die) make it a right evolution of the saga. The vote you see is designed for the PC version, while if you play it on console and things will not change compared to today, day one of the game, you will have to consider half a point of difference.
