TimAlien
2007
PRETEND THAT THIS REVIEW IS IN THAT ALL-CAPS COMIC BOOK FONT AND THERE YOU GO YOU'VE EXPERIENCED LIKE 2/3 OF THE GAME ALREADY.
Back in the 2000's there was a trend of making games dark and edgy. Give us all the bad boys... Give us all the darkness and black clothing and indulgently gory combat... Don't forget the nu metal! We revel in this stuff! Now for the crown jewel... add in extra misogy.... OH WAIT NO STOP STOP DON'T PUT THAT IN THERE!!!
The announcer in these games is legit one of my favorite characters of all time. If 1% of people working on games were as passionate as this voice actor we would be living in a gaming utopia right now. Every time he spoke it took ever fiber of my being to not lose control while dancing and fall to the ground in respect (laughter)
2023
This just felt like a really drawn out version of the fox, chicken, and grain crossing the river puzzle with a somewhat psychedelic artstyle. The bug do be ballin' tho.
2023
I've been dreading giving this game a (real) review ever since I finished the main story and looked up the other endings. My thoughts on it are so conflicting but I'll attempt to give an honest review to highlight both it's victories and it's numerous cardinal sins.
I don't like doing this but I'm going to use a pros and cons list to help stay organized because I feel like I could get rambly on this one.
Pros ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- This game definitely gets down the "feel" of a from soft souls game if only on the surface level in the game play loop and how the combat feels (sometimes)
- The soundtrack, design, animation, and most of the voice acting is great
- A society being overthrown by puppets who in the end were powered by dead people souls somehow is an interesting premise (if not a little too much like iRobot)
- There were some pretty awesome bosses and I liked the way they reused some areas and made enemies "evolve" over time by making infected versions of earlier enemies, different weapon variations, etc
- Deflecting can feel fun at times and the puppet string prosthetic is fun to use
Cons -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- First off the game being about Pinocchio is a huge detractor. It makes it insanely hard to take this game seriously. So much stuff feels forced into the game just because it was in the original Pinocchio story despite the fact that they're changing things so much that it hardly represents Pinocchio in any way at this point. Did the localization not realize that P sounds like another word in English? Who named the freaking "rise of P" ending? The WHAT organ? It's nearly a miracle we never had to collect "P liquid" or that they didn't refer to the Pinocchio nose on the picture frame as the "P stick".
- This game is crammed full of pointless items, systems, and an overabundance of confusing mechanics. More options doesn't = good if a large portion of the options suck.
- These characters are all boring and one note. I feel like the game expected me to get close to all these hotel people but all they do is give me stuff or sell me stuff or talk about their one character trait over and over again. Yeah I'm Korean and that dog guy saved me! Yeah I'm a rich billionaire who's parents were murdered by a puppet! They never grow or change and you never spend any meaningful time with them. The fox and cat were the closest to having progression but they ruin it by just being dicks to you at every chance they get.
- This game copies way too much from souls games just to say they copied something without thinking of whether it's good or fun. This game is on par with and/or worse than dark souls in the cheap ambushes department. Seriously this game is freaking obsessed with cheap stupid ambushes. Literally anytime I saw an item or chest I walked in backwards just because 80% of the time some stupid mob is waiting for you. This was never fun in dark souls or bloodborne, it was just kind of cheeky but I forgive it in those games because usually it's just now and then.
- Half of these weapons do not mesh well with the combat system and the way you're often forced to play the game to succeed. I could go into more detail about certain enemy attacks and move sets that bugged me and felt like they were clashing with the style of gameplay but I'll just stop here.
- I absolutely hate that you can't cancel out of attacks to do a deflect. This is my personal opinion and I learned to overcome my desire to want to do attack cancel deflects but it still felt bad. After having played Sekiro and Sifu going back to a game with deflects like this felt like having to write a letter to someone after years of having email.
- This camera is the real boss of the game. The fact that the camera doesn't auto adjust angle or almost ever auto adjust at all is extremely damning and frustrating. So many times I got stuck in corners while trying to dodge an attack or stuck in freaking enemy geometry and couldn't see where I was going. Also faster enemies like some late bosses or the second phase of the archbishop were an absolute nightmare with the camera flailing everywhere and just feeling terrible.
- The overall quality of the English localization is just not very good at all. I would forgive this if this was a smaller Indie studio but everything else about the game feels AAA so why is the English this bad? There aren't that many misspelled words though there are some but mostly the bad grammar and strangely worded sentences are what frustrates me. As someone who worked a Japanese to English translation job in the past I'm seeing lots of cases were I think direct or even machine translation might have been used with very little or maybe even zero native English speaker proofreading.
- Lastly (I promise) is that this story is just so weird. The way lies are integrated as a game play mechanic is so half baked. Sometimes the things you have to lie about are your opinions (Am I beautiful? Do you think she loved me? Was I a good dad? etc) so at first I thought "oh maybe the lies are the 'good person' answers" but no there are straight up other times where you have to lie to get the warm fuzzy points by lying to someone which leads them to somewhere dangerous. So many other parts of the story are just so forced either to make the game more like dark souls or to include something from Pinocchio. Seldom is anything added to the game at all if it's not to fulfill one of these delusions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet the game was actually kind of fun. This is all on just some bosses being cool and my affinity for the souls game play loop. To summarize my thoughts, the game feels like a symphony with a ton of different melodies going on but the melodies seldom go together very well and when they do it feels entirely on accident. It feels like someone did an AI generated from soft game and yeah if you squint a little it looks like a from soft game but if you take any time to look at the details you'll see weird artifacts and mangled hands and strange geometry in the background. Ultimately worth a shot if you like games similar to dark souls or bloodborne, but vastly flawed. It feels to me like so many people give this game a pass for all of these flaws just because of the Victorian/belle epoque/whatever vibe it gives off and this bugs me like crazy.
I don't like doing this but I'm going to use a pros and cons list to help stay organized because I feel like I could get rambly on this one.
Pros ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- This game definitely gets down the "feel" of a from soft souls game if only on the surface level in the game play loop and how the combat feels (sometimes)
- The soundtrack, design, animation, and most of the voice acting is great
- A society being overthrown by puppets who in the end were powered by dead people souls somehow is an interesting premise (if not a little too much like iRobot)
- There were some pretty awesome bosses and I liked the way they reused some areas and made enemies "evolve" over time by making infected versions of earlier enemies, different weapon variations, etc
- Deflecting can feel fun at times and the puppet string prosthetic is fun to use
Cons -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- First off the game being about Pinocchio is a huge detractor. It makes it insanely hard to take this game seriously. So much stuff feels forced into the game just because it was in the original Pinocchio story despite the fact that they're changing things so much that it hardly represents Pinocchio in any way at this point. Did the localization not realize that P sounds like another word in English? Who named the freaking "rise of P" ending? The WHAT organ? It's nearly a miracle we never had to collect "P liquid" or that they didn't refer to the Pinocchio nose on the picture frame as the "P stick".
- This game is crammed full of pointless items, systems, and an overabundance of confusing mechanics. More options doesn't = good if a large portion of the options suck.
- These characters are all boring and one note. I feel like the game expected me to get close to all these hotel people but all they do is give me stuff or sell me stuff or talk about their one character trait over and over again. Yeah I'm Korean and that dog guy saved me! Yeah I'm a rich billionaire who's parents were murdered by a puppet! They never grow or change and you never spend any meaningful time with them. The fox and cat were the closest to having progression but they ruin it by just being dicks to you at every chance they get.
- This game copies way too much from souls games just to say they copied something without thinking of whether it's good or fun. This game is on par with and/or worse than dark souls in the cheap ambushes department. Seriously this game is freaking obsessed with cheap stupid ambushes. Literally anytime I saw an item or chest I walked in backwards just because 80% of the time some stupid mob is waiting for you. This was never fun in dark souls or bloodborne, it was just kind of cheeky but I forgive it in those games because usually it's just now and then.
- Half of these weapons do not mesh well with the combat system and the way you're often forced to play the game to succeed. I could go into more detail about certain enemy attacks and move sets that bugged me and felt like they were clashing with the style of gameplay but I'll just stop here.
- I absolutely hate that you can't cancel out of attacks to do a deflect. This is my personal opinion and I learned to overcome my desire to want to do attack cancel deflects but it still felt bad. After having played Sekiro and Sifu going back to a game with deflects like this felt like having to write a letter to someone after years of having email.
- This camera is the real boss of the game. The fact that the camera doesn't auto adjust angle or almost ever auto adjust at all is extremely damning and frustrating. So many times I got stuck in corners while trying to dodge an attack or stuck in freaking enemy geometry and couldn't see where I was going. Also faster enemies like some late bosses or the second phase of the archbishop were an absolute nightmare with the camera flailing everywhere and just feeling terrible.
- The overall quality of the English localization is just not very good at all. I would forgive this if this was a smaller Indie studio but everything else about the game feels AAA so why is the English this bad? There aren't that many misspelled words though there are some but mostly the bad grammar and strangely worded sentences are what frustrates me. As someone who worked a Japanese to English translation job in the past I'm seeing lots of cases were I think direct or even machine translation might have been used with very little or maybe even zero native English speaker proofreading.
- Lastly (I promise) is that this story is just so weird. The way lies are integrated as a game play mechanic is so half baked. Sometimes the things you have to lie about are your opinions (Am I beautiful? Do you think she loved me? Was I a good dad? etc) so at first I thought "oh maybe the lies are the 'good person' answers" but no there are straight up other times where you have to lie to get the warm fuzzy points by lying to someone which leads them to somewhere dangerous. So many other parts of the story are just so forced either to make the game more like dark souls or to include something from Pinocchio. Seldom is anything added to the game at all if it's not to fulfill one of these delusions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet the game was actually kind of fun. This is all on just some bosses being cool and my affinity for the souls game play loop. To summarize my thoughts, the game feels like a symphony with a ton of different melodies going on but the melodies seldom go together very well and when they do it feels entirely on accident. It feels like someone did an AI generated from soft game and yeah if you squint a little it looks like a from soft game but if you take any time to look at the details you'll see weird artifacts and mangled hands and strange geometry in the background. Ultimately worth a shot if you like games similar to dark souls or bloodborne, but vastly flawed. It feels to me like so many people give this game a pass for all of these flaws just because of the Victorian/belle epoque/whatever vibe it gives off and this bugs me like crazy.
2021
Adorable smol game jam game with a very shallow premise but honestly some of the most interesting twists on turn based/time based combat that I've seen in a while. Giving yourself a tetris like preview of what your RNG is going to be like along with ways to influence it is an awesome idea and I want to see it explored further. The art style is pretty fun too.
Less of a horror game (which I was expecting) and more of a shock game if that makes sense. Some of the content in here is pretty typical banter that you'd see in an MMO regardless of whether the MMO is about to die or not which was fun but it quickly evolves into some of the most shocking stuff you could possibly run into. Particularly neo-nazi death cults, people worshipping real life murders, people talking about their fetishes, explicit cyber sex, etc. I applaud the dev for going this far with the subject material but it was kind of hard to get through and almost a bit cheesy and unrealistic feeling at times. In the end the vibe is definitely worth experiencing and there's a streamer mode to help make it a bit less explicit.
Cha brah we're hittin' the waves. Surfin' the tube. Just another day shwackin' with the boys at walmart.
Disappointing that a game with such an interesting art direction basically just culminated in praise for one of the most mid games of all time. Sure it made some interesting observations and dunked on a bunch of games I don't like, but also interesting that almost all of the games he dumped on are the poster children of Sony which was apparently the main sponsor for this.
2022
The ending felt so abrupt but as a whole I think this was a pretty good portrayal of what a semi dystopian but also somewhat realistic American Deep South might look like. The "combat" and boating mini games felt tacked on and unnecessary. I wish they left those details out to focus on more details or explorable areas.
2023
Naw I'm done with this trash. I will start off by saying I've never played a tactics game that I've actually liked but I thought I'd give this a chance considering how much I like persona and I will try to keep my criticisms off the tactics genre as much as possible.
The designs are butt ugly. The music has way less energy than it does in any other persona game I've played. The story is forgettable and uninteresting and the characters are basically just devolved to their most basic character traits. I was hoping for some interesting development or fun evolution to the persona/smt combat/monster collecting systems (which is what I got in droves from P5S) but in the 3-4 hours I gave this a shot I got pretty much nothing out of it but boredom and frustration with the dragged out wordy cutscenes.
The designs are butt ugly. The music has way less energy than it does in any other persona game I've played. The story is forgettable and uninteresting and the characters are basically just devolved to their most basic character traits. I was hoping for some interesting development or fun evolution to the persona/smt combat/monster collecting systems (which is what I got in droves from P5S) but in the 3-4 hours I gave this a shot I got pretty much nothing out of it but boredom and frustration with the dragged out wordy cutscenes.
2014
Who is delivering these letters? How are you still getting letters when everyone is dead? Where do you go to the bathroom? Other than nitpicks like this the game was definitely an experience and a vibe. Being cooped up in a prison with nothing to do but play unfair gameboy games really made time feel longer than it actually was and the twist was kind of interesting if not a bit forced. RIP Mr. Smiley. Also RIP to the Dev. This really shows how much potential they (and by extension all of us) have.
A list of reasons for why I chose Dark Souls 1 over all the other souls games:
Starting as an underdog and growing up
Hub world - You're never sure in 1 who is actually your friend or not. Even if they are in the hub world they could be evil and turn on you. 2 and 3 basically have you as the lord already and people who gather in the hub world are all your subjects. Everyone in 1 seems like they are/could be equal to you at least at some point. They might even be someone you look up to. At the very least, they aren't coming to the hub world to be your subject which is basically what happens in 3. Seriously, this is one of the best parts of this game. This isn't even counting the interconnectivity.
No clear starting path - You could go to the burg, new londo ruins, catacombs, etc. in 1. 2 does this fine as well, but 3 starts out basically linear.
Perfect tutorial area - The asylum is great because it fits perfectly with the narrative and is not too hand-holdy but not too vague at the same time. The atmosphere is great and meeting the knight who saved you and seeing him go hollow introduces you to that theme early and in a powerful way. It's even cooler that you can go back to a powered up version of the area later.
You can learn smithing etc. - The ability to get the repair box and smith kit in 1 made me feel so much more like I was progressing to becoming more self-sufficient. It was also just so much more satisfying to not have to go back to the hub world for stupid stuff like basic upgrades. In the same vein it made bigger upgrades feel more special because you had to go to the right smith in the right place and have their specific ember etc. It didn't feel tedious and it actually felt more fun and adventurous. 2 at least had 1 other blacksmith.
Hollowing balance
Humanity - Best item. I love that it can stack and there are pros and cons to doing so (item discovery but you have more to lose when dying). It working as a healing item is understandably a little broken, but the stacking/risk/being able to recover them with souls made them sooo much more fun to use. Also it was easier/more fun to farm them. Also being able to use humanity to buff bonfires was way more rewarding than just finding estus shards in random places. You always have to be strategic with your humanity.
Summoning - Connected to humanity is your ability to summon/be invaded which is carried on except in 2 you could still be invaded whenever. I don't like 2s approach because it only gives you one path that you can take whereas in 1 and 3 you can take the risk of going through with humanity and experience the bonus of being invaded but decide to play it safe by staying hollowed if you want.
Losing health - Yeah it does up the stakes in 2 when you lose health as a hollow, but it was not as fun as it was in say Demon's souls. You already lose the ability to summon as a hollow so why make us fight alone with less health than we have earned by leveling up? I think there is a "the more you lose the harder it gets" mentality behind these games, but everything is better when that isn't implemented fully.
Lore
Basis of everything - I don't know if there's much to say here other than 2 and 3 are just trying to copy what was good about 1's lore and feel much less original. They also feel a lot less developed and interesting.
More realistic - This connects to what I mentioned in the hub world. Every character feels like they have their own agenda and could easily backstab you anytime. Bosses also have much more of an agenda then: "you come in my room I kill" which seems more prevalent in the other games. I never felt bad about any bosses I killed in 2 or 3 except for maybe the old hollowed king in 2 but the stupid giant souls mechanic mostly made up for that. 1 is the only game where I could see myself as actually playing the villain.
Character backstories - Were actually emotional and meaningful if not difficult to keep track of and execute properly. It was crazy to see characters that had helped you end up chasing something only to end up hollow. Fighting them afterwards was brutal. Then you have all the betrayers like I talked about above. Everyone is so memorable. There's also a good balance of mysterious characters that are not explained as much, making them fun to speculate on. Domnhall of Zena for instance is my favorite.
Meaningful consequences - Kill Gwynevere or Gwyn? The bois are mad at you now. You even get dark Anor Londo. Failure to kill the gold boy means you lose your bonfire at firelink. Yeah you can still kill friendlies in the other games with consequences but they didn't feel as meaningful and were a lot more completionist in nature. Also you can get indicted for invading etc.
Covenants - While their mechanics are for sure improved in other games the covenants in 1 felt much more real and were clearly connected to the world. This is enhanced by the fact that you meet lots of npcs associated with a lot of the covenants. Also you always have a living entity that you make your covenant with. It's never just with an item you find. There is the exception of sun bros covenant which is just the statue, but Solaire's prevalence helps to make up for that easily. Also there hasn't been a covenant that affected normal gameplay quite like gravelord servant ever since. Covenant special items were also a lot of fun (gravelord sword, darkhand, etc).
Connected map
Not much to argue here
Balanced fighting
Rolling isn't your only option - This was improved in 3 but 2 basically nerfed shields and parrying into the ground. Parrying is so freaking satisfying and although it is kinda cheap that is what makes it fun. Same with backstabs but I am more indifferent to them. Rolling is awesome and 100% necessary, but I always felt like I could choose different options when taking on enemies and bosses (and I don't mean magic vs melee which is always present, I mean melee approach variety) by using shields or using different timing etc.
Poise - It could be learned in 1. 2 and 3 do have some kind of poise mechanic, yeah but it is undecipherable to an average player and just feels like it was completely removed. In 1 it was easy to see "Ok if I use x weapon it will stagger y enemy after z hits" based on enemy type and weapon heaviness and it allowed you to calculate when you could take risks. 2 and 3 this is much less transparent and lots of enemies/bosses just have moves that you can't interrupt no matter what, not to mention random invincible sections. Your own character also has poise which you could clearly adjust with your stats, armor, and shield choices.
Fair but hard bosses - There are plenty of these across the series but I felt like there were the least cancer bosses in 1. Bed of chaos is cancer for sure but everyone else had pretty fun mechanics for the most part. 2 and 3 add in more bosses that introduce bed of chaos style pits and ridiculous timing dodging not to mention invincibility.
Stamina - This of course depends on your build and weapons but I felt like I did a lot more strategizing with stamina in 1 than the other 2 because I usually had a lot to spare in 2 and 3 but that might be hard to confirm and based solely on how I played each game.
Stuff that still sucks
Great Hollow - Nothing fun about the terrible platforming here. Challenging platforming is done well in blighttown and that is enough.
Spell uses - FP in Dks3 is a huge improvement
Rings - You can only wear 2. I honestly don't mind this though because individual rings were better
Matchmaking - It's basically impossible to play with a specific friend unless you get lucky although I've never specifically tried so it's hard to say
Blocking is a little too good - Should eat stamina more I agree
Stuff I'm on the fence about
Weapon infusion - On the fence about this in every game though
Farming - I actually kind of enjoyed it here though
Pacing in second half - Feel like it's a trade off for making things more open ended
Useless stuff - crossbows, whips, etc
BONUS CONTENT
DKS1 BEST BOIS: GIANT BLACKSMITH, DOMHNALL, ANDRE, VAMOS, SOLAIRE, GOUGH, BIG HAT LOGAN
DKS2 BEST BOIS: GAVLAN, SCORPION BOI
DKS3 BEST BOIS: …….IDK YET
Starting as an underdog and growing up
Hub world - You're never sure in 1 who is actually your friend or not. Even if they are in the hub world they could be evil and turn on you. 2 and 3 basically have you as the lord already and people who gather in the hub world are all your subjects. Everyone in 1 seems like they are/could be equal to you at least at some point. They might even be someone you look up to. At the very least, they aren't coming to the hub world to be your subject which is basically what happens in 3. Seriously, this is one of the best parts of this game. This isn't even counting the interconnectivity.
No clear starting path - You could go to the burg, new londo ruins, catacombs, etc. in 1. 2 does this fine as well, but 3 starts out basically linear.
Perfect tutorial area - The asylum is great because it fits perfectly with the narrative and is not too hand-holdy but not too vague at the same time. The atmosphere is great and meeting the knight who saved you and seeing him go hollow introduces you to that theme early and in a powerful way. It's even cooler that you can go back to a powered up version of the area later.
You can learn smithing etc. - The ability to get the repair box and smith kit in 1 made me feel so much more like I was progressing to becoming more self-sufficient. It was also just so much more satisfying to not have to go back to the hub world for stupid stuff like basic upgrades. In the same vein it made bigger upgrades feel more special because you had to go to the right smith in the right place and have their specific ember etc. It didn't feel tedious and it actually felt more fun and adventurous. 2 at least had 1 other blacksmith.
Hollowing balance
Humanity - Best item. I love that it can stack and there are pros and cons to doing so (item discovery but you have more to lose when dying). It working as a healing item is understandably a little broken, but the stacking/risk/being able to recover them with souls made them sooo much more fun to use. Also it was easier/more fun to farm them. Also being able to use humanity to buff bonfires was way more rewarding than just finding estus shards in random places. You always have to be strategic with your humanity.
Summoning - Connected to humanity is your ability to summon/be invaded which is carried on except in 2 you could still be invaded whenever. I don't like 2s approach because it only gives you one path that you can take whereas in 1 and 3 you can take the risk of going through with humanity and experience the bonus of being invaded but decide to play it safe by staying hollowed if you want.
Losing health - Yeah it does up the stakes in 2 when you lose health as a hollow, but it was not as fun as it was in say Demon's souls. You already lose the ability to summon as a hollow so why make us fight alone with less health than we have earned by leveling up? I think there is a "the more you lose the harder it gets" mentality behind these games, but everything is better when that isn't implemented fully.
Lore
Basis of everything - I don't know if there's much to say here other than 2 and 3 are just trying to copy what was good about 1's lore and feel much less original. They also feel a lot less developed and interesting.
More realistic - This connects to what I mentioned in the hub world. Every character feels like they have their own agenda and could easily backstab you anytime. Bosses also have much more of an agenda then: "you come in my room I kill" which seems more prevalent in the other games. I never felt bad about any bosses I killed in 2 or 3 except for maybe the old hollowed king in 2 but the stupid giant souls mechanic mostly made up for that. 1 is the only game where I could see myself as actually playing the villain.
Character backstories - Were actually emotional and meaningful if not difficult to keep track of and execute properly. It was crazy to see characters that had helped you end up chasing something only to end up hollow. Fighting them afterwards was brutal. Then you have all the betrayers like I talked about above. Everyone is so memorable. There's also a good balance of mysterious characters that are not explained as much, making them fun to speculate on. Domnhall of Zena for instance is my favorite.
Meaningful consequences - Kill Gwynevere or Gwyn? The bois are mad at you now. You even get dark Anor Londo. Failure to kill the gold boy means you lose your bonfire at firelink. Yeah you can still kill friendlies in the other games with consequences but they didn't feel as meaningful and were a lot more completionist in nature. Also you can get indicted for invading etc.
Covenants - While their mechanics are for sure improved in other games the covenants in 1 felt much more real and were clearly connected to the world. This is enhanced by the fact that you meet lots of npcs associated with a lot of the covenants. Also you always have a living entity that you make your covenant with. It's never just with an item you find. There is the exception of sun bros covenant which is just the statue, but Solaire's prevalence helps to make up for that easily. Also there hasn't been a covenant that affected normal gameplay quite like gravelord servant ever since. Covenant special items were also a lot of fun (gravelord sword, darkhand, etc).
Connected map
Not much to argue here
Balanced fighting
Rolling isn't your only option - This was improved in 3 but 2 basically nerfed shields and parrying into the ground. Parrying is so freaking satisfying and although it is kinda cheap that is what makes it fun. Same with backstabs but I am more indifferent to them. Rolling is awesome and 100% necessary, but I always felt like I could choose different options when taking on enemies and bosses (and I don't mean magic vs melee which is always present, I mean melee approach variety) by using shields or using different timing etc.
Poise - It could be learned in 1. 2 and 3 do have some kind of poise mechanic, yeah but it is undecipherable to an average player and just feels like it was completely removed. In 1 it was easy to see "Ok if I use x weapon it will stagger y enemy after z hits" based on enemy type and weapon heaviness and it allowed you to calculate when you could take risks. 2 and 3 this is much less transparent and lots of enemies/bosses just have moves that you can't interrupt no matter what, not to mention random invincible sections. Your own character also has poise which you could clearly adjust with your stats, armor, and shield choices.
Fair but hard bosses - There are plenty of these across the series but I felt like there were the least cancer bosses in 1. Bed of chaos is cancer for sure but everyone else had pretty fun mechanics for the most part. 2 and 3 add in more bosses that introduce bed of chaos style pits and ridiculous timing dodging not to mention invincibility.
Stamina - This of course depends on your build and weapons but I felt like I did a lot more strategizing with stamina in 1 than the other 2 because I usually had a lot to spare in 2 and 3 but that might be hard to confirm and based solely on how I played each game.
Stuff that still sucks
Great Hollow - Nothing fun about the terrible platforming here. Challenging platforming is done well in blighttown and that is enough.
Spell uses - FP in Dks3 is a huge improvement
Rings - You can only wear 2. I honestly don't mind this though because individual rings were better
Matchmaking - It's basically impossible to play with a specific friend unless you get lucky although I've never specifically tried so it's hard to say
Blocking is a little too good - Should eat stamina more I agree
Stuff I'm on the fence about
Weapon infusion - On the fence about this in every game though
Farming - I actually kind of enjoyed it here though
Pacing in second half - Feel like it's a trade off for making things more open ended
Useless stuff - crossbows, whips, etc
BONUS CONTENT
DKS1 BEST BOIS: GIANT BLACKSMITH, DOMHNALL, ANDRE, VAMOS, SOLAIRE, GOUGH, BIG HAT LOGAN
DKS2 BEST BOIS: GAVLAN, SCORPION BOI
DKS3 BEST BOIS: …….IDK YET
Very cool idea ruined by ARG slop
2017
I'll start out by saying I tend to not be a big fan of metroidvania games but with this one I thought the souls influences and vibe would hold it over and they did to a degree but in the end there was just so much backtracking, tedious fights, and lots of wasted time on crappy platforming. I did not grow to love the funny voice bugs and their uncharacteristically goofy personalities I just got tired of the dragged out monotony. But the handful of cool moments and fights keep it above 3 stars for me.