Still Souls-brained after Elden Ring, unfulfilled after an excellent Sekiro playthrough, I returned to Dark Souls III. In the past, I had been committed to pure-melee, no summon types of playthroughs of the post-DSII "fast" Souls titles. Elden Ring changed this for me; while the enemy encounters were more unfair than they ever have been in Souls, the player's toolkit had never offered so many ways of mitigating difficulty. After watching the excellent Noah Caldwell-Gervais video essay on the trilogy, I was convinced to return to Dark Souls III making use of spells, summons, the works. I had a fantastic time.
The impression I had that spells would be useless due to the pace of the combat was unfounded. While some aggressive melee bosses were certainly a lot tougher 1v1, most PvE was rendered significantly easier due to the range and power offered by spells scaled to high INT and FTH. So many great and hilarious moments: equipping the Dark Clutch Ring and destroying Friede with Great Soul Dregs, beating Midir by staying under him while casting Pestilent Mist, using toxic clouds on Gael as I chill out of harm's reach behind a wall. None of this provided the same visceral thrill as my first proper run-ins with these bosses, but I've done that already. This playstyle provided me with a new experience, one that made me feel cheeky and devious, someone willing to use all the weird tools at their disposal to overcome a more physically powerful foe which, given my stat investment, the bosses indeed were. In this sense, Dark Souls III felt more like a role-playing game than it ever had for me in the past. What a great time.
The impression I had that spells would be useless due to the pace of the combat was unfounded. While some aggressive melee bosses were certainly a lot tougher 1v1, most PvE was rendered significantly easier due to the range and power offered by spells scaled to high INT and FTH. So many great and hilarious moments: equipping the Dark Clutch Ring and destroying Friede with Great Soul Dregs, beating Midir by staying under him while casting Pestilent Mist, using toxic clouds on Gael as I chill out of harm's reach behind a wall. None of this provided the same visceral thrill as my first proper run-ins with these bosses, but I've done that already. This playstyle provided me with a new experience, one that made me feel cheeky and devious, someone willing to use all the weird tools at their disposal to overcome a more physically powerful foe which, given my stat investment, the bosses indeed were. In this sense, Dark Souls III felt more like a role-playing game than it ever had for me in the past. What a great time.