I'm not a fan of Dark Souls III. While admitedly course correcting much of DS2's lackluster kinesthetics, dubious design choices and overall uglyness, its lustrous presentation of a dying world filled with grotesteque ghouls and tragic beasts to be put out of their misery once again failed to compel me to be absorbed by its story and challenge as I once was with DS1 and it left me questioning the path the series had decided to taken upon itself for the future.
My early disappointment started to set in when I realized that the promise of a converging world filled with different realities and structures stacked on top of each other in a sea of chaos, ash and rot established in its intro cutscene and promotional art wasn't going to be delivered. Instead, that narrative thread served as an excuse to place incompatible and unrelated levels one after another in a straight line to the credits, without much consideration for thematic or aesthetic consistency and purpose. Much of that disregard was evidently a direct result of the decision to give fast travel to the player from the start.
It's no secret that much of the success of DS1 was achieved on the shoulders of its beautifully crafted world design that revealed itself with every twist and turn the player conquered one step at a time and whose immersive oppression was built up throughout the long treks it forced you to make between bonfires. Reaching Ash Lake after hours spent trudging through Blighttown only to realize I would have to go back up again was one of the most defeated feelings I had ever experienced in a videogame, and also the exact moment I fell in love with the series. There is truth to the criticism that DS1's peak is Anor Londo and the game kinda deflates from then on out, but it's telling that that's also when you happen to gain the ability to fast travel.
DS3 methodically perfects the level design formula of its predecessors, to such a degree that robs its world of much of the allure, mystery and sense of adventure one came to expect of the series, regardless of how genuinely picturesque and challenging its settings can be. Reaching a new area only to see gate with an obvious shortcut elevator behind it never ceased to immediately halt my excitement for what lied ahead, a reminder that the next set of hardships would be a tightly controlled environment saved by the proper placement of a bonfire only to be discarded once conquered.
And for the DS3 fan reading this and wanting more reason to hate me, consider that my favorite area of the whole game was Farron's Keep. Yeah, the fuckin slow moving swamp, the one moment of DS3 where you are allowed to push into the unknown, surrounded by unseen threats and lacking any specific direction while witnessing monstrosities far off in the distance, and whose small stories of discovery, action and terror that occur within it further expand your understanding of this universe's history and interconnectivity. And then, a bonfire is found in the middle of it, and all that beautiful tension immediately evaporates.
While technically harder than anything that came before it, DS3 never feels as punishing and harsh as DeS or DS1 could be. None of DS3's misfortunes manage to match the dread of getting cursed or losing the Firelink bonfire in DS1 nor do its unseen tricks every feel as crippling and nasty as DeS's persistent world. Instead, it's a repeat of most of those games unique ideas refurbished in a way as to not upset its new fandom, focusing on b-lines to a franchise rapidly being about fighting highly challenging and fast paced bosses. In a sense, the new Firelink Shrine is a fitting representation of DS3, a safe hub set in a controlled void without conflict and struggle, where the player can indulge himself with all the commodation and comfort the game is able to provide.
Such reasons kept me away from its DLC for this long, and while it didn't absolutely dazzle me I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be an improvement over the main game. One of my biggest gripes with DS3 was its eagerness to display an abundance of iterations on the themes and concepts of DS1 without giving them breathing room to develop and imprint their significance into the whole of the series. Coming hot of Bloodborne's tightly cohesive world and lore, detours into the Cathedral of the Deep or the Profaned Capital felt like half baked underwhelming experiences that could have gladly filled an entire game and ended up just overcomplicating the mythology of the franchise. Both Ashes of Ariandel and Ringed City manage to fix that sore spot.
Decaying, rotting and decrepit vistas of ash, cold and death, whose denizens comprise of locusts, flies and crows waiting for the end of the world. The thematic ensemble of the DLC finally does justice to the DS3 promise and presents an intimate conversation with the player on the inevitable finality of all things in a visual language much stronger than anything present in the rest of DS3, overtly revealing the last remaining secrets of its lore and converging all of its ideas into one final epilogue. While too little too late, Dreg Heap is the game I wanted out of DS3, at last placing you at the center of the infamous "time is convoluted in Lordran" meme with crumbling buildings and toppled civilizations merging into one another. The Amnesiac Lapp questline is a brilliant understated encapsulation of Dark Souls that perfectly endcaps the dark/light motif of the series, and both Sister Friede and Gael provide the best DS3 boss experience that manages to be challenging while remaining doable and fair, unlike much of Elden Ring's unbalanced roster.
Going through Dark Souls III again and finally experiencing its DLC after coming off of Elden Ring, I've gained a bit more appreciation for it and what it set out to do. It will never be one of my favs from the franchise, as it branched into a path that further removed a lot of the design sensibilities that made me a fan of its predecessors, but considering what it eventually evolves into, I find it to be a very good videogame.
My early disappointment started to set in when I realized that the promise of a converging world filled with different realities and structures stacked on top of each other in a sea of chaos, ash and rot established in its intro cutscene and promotional art wasn't going to be delivered. Instead, that narrative thread served as an excuse to place incompatible and unrelated levels one after another in a straight line to the credits, without much consideration for thematic or aesthetic consistency and purpose. Much of that disregard was evidently a direct result of the decision to give fast travel to the player from the start.
It's no secret that much of the success of DS1 was achieved on the shoulders of its beautifully crafted world design that revealed itself with every twist and turn the player conquered one step at a time and whose immersive oppression was built up throughout the long treks it forced you to make between bonfires. Reaching Ash Lake after hours spent trudging through Blighttown only to realize I would have to go back up again was one of the most defeated feelings I had ever experienced in a videogame, and also the exact moment I fell in love with the series. There is truth to the criticism that DS1's peak is Anor Londo and the game kinda deflates from then on out, but it's telling that that's also when you happen to gain the ability to fast travel.
DS3 methodically perfects the level design formula of its predecessors, to such a degree that robs its world of much of the allure, mystery and sense of adventure one came to expect of the series, regardless of how genuinely picturesque and challenging its settings can be. Reaching a new area only to see gate with an obvious shortcut elevator behind it never ceased to immediately halt my excitement for what lied ahead, a reminder that the next set of hardships would be a tightly controlled environment saved by the proper placement of a bonfire only to be discarded once conquered.
And for the DS3 fan reading this and wanting more reason to hate me, consider that my favorite area of the whole game was Farron's Keep. Yeah, the fuckin slow moving swamp, the one moment of DS3 where you are allowed to push into the unknown, surrounded by unseen threats and lacking any specific direction while witnessing monstrosities far off in the distance, and whose small stories of discovery, action and terror that occur within it further expand your understanding of this universe's history and interconnectivity. And then, a bonfire is found in the middle of it, and all that beautiful tension immediately evaporates.
While technically harder than anything that came before it, DS3 never feels as punishing and harsh as DeS or DS1 could be. None of DS3's misfortunes manage to match the dread of getting cursed or losing the Firelink bonfire in DS1 nor do its unseen tricks every feel as crippling and nasty as DeS's persistent world. Instead, it's a repeat of most of those games unique ideas refurbished in a way as to not upset its new fandom, focusing on b-lines to a franchise rapidly being about fighting highly challenging and fast paced bosses. In a sense, the new Firelink Shrine is a fitting representation of DS3, a safe hub set in a controlled void without conflict and struggle, where the player can indulge himself with all the commodation and comfort the game is able to provide.
Such reasons kept me away from its DLC for this long, and while it didn't absolutely dazzle me I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be an improvement over the main game. One of my biggest gripes with DS3 was its eagerness to display an abundance of iterations on the themes and concepts of DS1 without giving them breathing room to develop and imprint their significance into the whole of the series. Coming hot of Bloodborne's tightly cohesive world and lore, detours into the Cathedral of the Deep or the Profaned Capital felt like half baked underwhelming experiences that could have gladly filled an entire game and ended up just overcomplicating the mythology of the franchise. Both Ashes of Ariandel and Ringed City manage to fix that sore spot.
Decaying, rotting and decrepit vistas of ash, cold and death, whose denizens comprise of locusts, flies and crows waiting for the end of the world. The thematic ensemble of the DLC finally does justice to the DS3 promise and presents an intimate conversation with the player on the inevitable finality of all things in a visual language much stronger than anything present in the rest of DS3, overtly revealing the last remaining secrets of its lore and converging all of its ideas into one final epilogue. While too little too late, Dreg Heap is the game I wanted out of DS3, at last placing you at the center of the infamous "time is convoluted in Lordran" meme with crumbling buildings and toppled civilizations merging into one another. The Amnesiac Lapp questline is a brilliant understated encapsulation of Dark Souls that perfectly endcaps the dark/light motif of the series, and both Sister Friede and Gael provide the best DS3 boss experience that manages to be challenging while remaining doable and fair, unlike much of Elden Ring's unbalanced roster.
Going through Dark Souls III again and finally experiencing its DLC after coming off of Elden Ring, I've gained a bit more appreciation for it and what it set out to do. It will never be one of my favs from the franchise, as it branched into a path that further removed a lot of the design sensibilities that made me a fan of its predecessors, but considering what it eventually evolves into, I find it to be a very good videogame.
3 Comments
@EldestBrisingr It's interesting that you say that about Sekiro, because that game further exacerbates that aspect of Dark Souls III. It's telling that you hardly hear people talk about the stuff that happens between bosses in Sekiro, that game truly should have just been a boss rush.
Funnily enough, boss rush gauntlets were later added to Sekiro. I find it odd they never did that for any of their other games.
EldestBrisingr
5 months ago