Dark Souls III (From Software, 2016)
The long-awaited sequel to my favourite game of all time (that's Dark Souls 1, not 2) is here, and after having beaten it and spent a fair share of time on PvP, I thought I'd share my thoughts with the game so far.
The first thing you'll likely notice about the game is how much faster the core gameplay is than in the previous games. Nearly everything about the gameplay is modelled after DS1, but with generally faster animations and recovery times, and lower stamina costs for rolling and sprinting. It also takes some much needed mechanics from DS2, such as the ability to roll and sprint in any direction while locked on, increasing the level of mobility immensely. But while in DS2 locking on essentially meant just removing the necessity of controlling the camera manually, DS3 on the other hand takes the design approach of DS1 by having two separate types of movement between locked-on and unlocked play, making it much more ideal for advanced players and combining the best of both games. DS3 also has the addition of weapon arts, special moves that are consumed by a new resource shared with spellcasting. These moves range from short self-buffs to massive wombo-combos, and they can potentially change the dynamic of combat significantly as well as encourage a higher variety of weapon use.
One thing I'm sad is missing however is the ability to properly dual wield. In DS2 weapons held in the left hand had their full movesets enabled, and dual wielding certain combinations of weapons enabled "powerstancing", unlocking new special moves. Powerstancing was a very hit-or-miss mechanic, with most moves being effectively useless - and that has been replaced in DS3 with special dual-wielding weapons that are much better designed. Still, dual wielding was not limited to powerstancing, and in my mind the best part about it was the ability to mix and match different weapon types, complementing the weaknesses of one weapon with the strengths of another. DS3 goes back to the DS1 approach of only allowing left hand weapons to block and do normal attacks, severely limiting the usefulness dual wielding can have. It still remains to be seen how badly this missing feature will impact the variety of playstyles the game can offer, but even with it missing, DS3 does still have the best gameplay mechanics in the series overall.
Fans of DS1 will be pleased to know that the quality of world design is once again very good. One of the things DS1 was most praised for was how its world evoked a great sense of scale and connectivity by having essentially the entire game world laid out in front of your eyes - structures that you can see from a vast distance that you will in fact access later in the game, and a heavy focus on verticality that makes the world seem multidimensional. One of the things DS2 was most criticized for was how badly it dropped the ball on that - the game was riddled impossible geometry, poor sense of scale, nonsensical area connections and an overall very flat world design. DS3, it seems, has made a very deliberate point of rectifying all the mistakes DS2 made with world design and more. The game's progression essentially has you start off in a city at the top of a valley, venturing downwards to another city at the bottom of the valley. At the beginning, you can look down into the valley and see all the landmarks you'll get to visit, and in many points of the game there are vantage points that let you see just how far you've come down. All the geometry in the game is, as far as I can tell, very accurate and realistic, not pulling any tricks like DS2 did. Nowhere is the consistency of this game world exemplified better as with a recurring interaction with a giant that shoots down massive javelin-like arrows wherever there is a white birch. These birches can be several areas away from where you initially encounter the giant, but sure enough, where there is one, there's also a tower visible in the distance that you visited hours of gameplay ago. DS3 also makes a point of enforcing the rule of "if you can see it, you can visit it", often surprising me with having areas that I thought were mere background decoration be actual visitable areas in the game.
It goes without saying that a next-gen title will have much better graphics than games from the previous generation, and that is certainly true with this game. But From goes above and beyond with the level of environmental design, taking full advantage of the increased memory pools of current range of hardware by filling every nook and cranny with extremely detailed geometry, resulting in a world that looks realistically lived in and worn out over the millennia. Combined with the creativity of Miyazaki, the areas in this game are very visually pleasing - and very cleverly designed, too. Despite having very similar world design to DS1, DS3 takes quite a different approach in terms of level design. In DS1, and to some extent DS2, level design is very Metroidvania-like, having levels be fairly short but interconnected in various ways. DS3 on the other hand is perhaps most similar to Demon's Souls in terms of level design - progression is fairly linear, there's a huge emphasis on sprawling, self-contained levels with multiple shortcuts, splintering paths and hidden secrets, and there's a central hub you do practically all of your character building in. The quality of level design is very solid and doesn't suffer from the same issues DS1 and DS2 had where the quality dropped off noticeably after the second half, leading people to believe the games were rushed to release. The individual levels are generally the best designed in the series, but the more linear progression can be both a good and bad thing - it's very satisfying for a first playthrough, but in subsequent playthroughs it offers very little variety in terms of what paths you can take through the game, whereas in DS1 and DS2 you had very many options. It remains to be seen how much that affects replayability.
There are fewer boss fights overall than in previous games, but none of them are wasted on throwaways or pushovers. DS3 really seems to reserve the fanfare of a boss health bar and musical theme only to enemies that are mechanically and thematically significant enough. There are a couple gimmicky puzzle fights that will likely get tedious very quickly, but the majority that are straight up skill fights are very tightly designed, much more aggressive than in previous games, and often incorporate unique mechanics that separate them from the generic "dudes in armor" archetype that DS2 abused too often. The increased aggression comes with much shorter windows of opportunity, potentially throwing off veteran players that are at this point very used to the dynamic of dodging a combo and responding with a couple attacks. Learning the bosses' patterns and finding their narrow windows of opportunity can be quite a challenge, but the difficulty is never unfair and overcoming the challenge is very satisfying.
Finally, let's talk about PvP and balance - the things that determine the longevity of the game. First of all, the netcode could use some work to sort out glitches and connectivity issues, but it's not too bad and nothing that can't be fixed with patches. Soul Memory from DS2 is thankfully gone, and is replaced with a system that takes both soul level and the highest upgrade level of your weapons into account for matchmaking. On paper, it seems like a much better system for eliminating twinking - Soul Memory used all souls you've ever gained in the game to determine matchmaking brackets, which didn't really solve the issue of twinking, but it introduced many more for organized PvP - essentially matching people who stuck to a meta soul level with people who were max level. DS3's system shouldn't pose any such issues, because anyone doing organized PvP will be using max upgraded weapons anyway, while twinks genuinely have to stick to gear that isn't too powerful for a given area.
The PvP meta is something that's going to evolve over the coming months, but there are a few things you can notice in From's balancing that might help shape it. First of all, damage values have been made very flat across the board, with fast swinging small swords having only marginally smaller damage per hit than massive slow-hitting weapons. For PvE, this means smaller weapons like straight swords, katanas and rapiers have by far the most DPS in the game, but for PvP things aren't for simple - in my limited experience, it seems to me that the ultra-heavy and slow weapons are actually in a pretty good spot, despite the game being much faster paced. This is because with faster pace comes more mobility - it's much easier to swoop in and out of the opponent's range, making the deadly R1 spam of straight swords only a real problem if you get caught by it. Larger weapons have the advantage of higher range, making your effective range potentially much better than your opponent's or vice versa, and more importantly heavy weapons once again have hyper armour, and it hasn't been this significant since Demon's Souls. It means that when you're attacking with a heavy weapon, you're invulnerable to stagger mid-swing, making them much better for trading than small weapons. The real victims of this balance are the weapons in the middle - the medium-sized weapons that have neither the DPS nor the range and hyper armour, making them substantially weaker than their counterparts in nearly all aspects. Magic and faith seem to also be very weak as well, although I haven't confirmed this myself. Let's just hope that From will be attentive with balancing the game and bringing frequent patches, and this game could very easily strike a very good balance.
As a huge fan of the series, Dark Souls III is at the very least the satisfying sequel that I hoped for, but despite having its own share of issues, it could also dethrone the first Dark Souls as my favourite game in the series, and possibly my favourite game in general. That's probably not a judgment I can make until I've played the game for several hundred hours, and with balance patches the game could only get better, but for now my early impressions are that I'm very satisfied with the game.