A year ago I played Dark Souls 3 for the first time. I hated it. Immensely. I’m not even sure how to express the depths of my hatred for it because of how joyless of an experience it was. I’m laughing as I write this because of how hyperbolic it sounds, but I need you to understand how much I didn’t enjoy playing this video game.
What makes the whole situation even funnier, to me and maybe only me, is how I crowned Dark Souls Remastered my favourite game played in 2022. Huh?! What is going on here? Why was there a Mariana Trench sized gulf between my experience with the first, and third games in the trilogy? I dunno. I’m a big dumb gorilla who mostly writes opinion pieces, and plays fighting games. If I could explain the disparity in my experiences I would have turned it into an article already. That’s what I do.
![Finding the dead smith at his forge in Anor Londo.](https://frostilyte.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ds3-dead-smith-anor-londo.png?w=1024)
However, I recently watched 3 different videos that got me thinking about my perspective on Dark Souls 3. The first video is titled Dark Souls 3 is Thinking of Ending Things by Jacob Geller, which I’d encourage you to watch as I’ll only be scratching the surface of it here. The video gets into how the vibes of Dark Souls 3’s lore, as Geller puts it, suggest that the world of Dark Souls is wrestling with itself, and on the brink of collapse. This is attributed to how all 3 games take place during the Age of Fire, which has been prolonged past its natural conclusion.
What caused Geller’s video to really dig its talons into me is how it challenged 1 of my major criticisms of Dark Souls 3: that it’s derivative. Many of the game’s locations are callbacks to the first game’s Lordran, despite Dark Souls 3 taking place in an ostensibly new kingdom called Lothric. There’s a poison swamp, catacombs full of demons, and we even get to visit the city of Gods Anor Londo again! This is just Dark Souls dressed up with prettier graphics, and a better frame rate. I see exactly what you’re doing FromSoft! I will not be so easily deceived.
In my defense, I feel like it was easy to arrive at the conclusion that Dark Souls 3 was derivative. My assumption was that the development team deliberately reused locations to invoke nostalgia for the original Dark Souls because of how poorly its sequel Dark Souls 2 was received. If FromSoft could get everyone to unknowingly attribute all of their positive feelings from Dark Souls onto Dark Souls 3 thanks to some familiar imagery then it’d be received more positively. They’re not the only developers to attempt doing something like this, so I naturally concluded that was why Dark Souls 3 was so chock full of callbacks to the first game.
Regardless, watching Geller’s video opened my eyes to another possibility: perhaps the familiar imagery was meant to highlight how much the world of Dark Souls had been perverted by the prolonged Age of Fire. Every building is crumbling to dust, and many of the human residents have gone insane, or been transformed into horrific monsters. Seeing how much worse everything is compared to the original Dark Souls really drives home just how awful the Age of Fire has been for everyone, and everything.
Given this newfound perspective, I don’t think my original conclusion on Dark Souls 3 holds any weight. The game might be derivative at a surface level, but digging for even a little additional context provides a very compelling argument for why Dark Souls 3 makes so many callbacks to older games in the franchise. This isn’t merely fanservice. It helps to accentuate how much the world has fallen into disarray, and really drives home the ending when, regardless of the player’s choices, the Age of Fire ends. The world of Dark Souls simply can’t continue on like this, and needs to end things.
![Standing in Firelink Shrine.](https://frostilyte.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ds3-firelink-shrine.png?w=1024)
Geller’s video makes an excellent case for why Dark Souls 3 has so much familiar imagery, but what were those other 2 videos I mentioned at the top of the article? More importantly, what aspect of my criticisms toward Dark Souls 3 did they address?
Well, I’m glad you asked.
The remaining 2 videos that challenged my perspective on Dark Souls 3 are both by hbomberguy: Bloodborne is Genius, And Here’s Why, and In Defence of Dark Souls 2. As I’m sure you’ve surmised, neither video is about Dark Souls 3, but hbomberguy makes a point in both wherein he claims that using shields is the wrong way to play Dark Souls.
Now, I realize that claiming some way of playing a game is wrong is an incredibly loaded statement. However, hbomberguy does elaborate on what he means by this across the contents of the 2 videos, which I also encourage you to watch. The short version is that he believes FromSoft’s games are typically more fun when players aren’t passively hiding behind their shield. He also blames FromSoft for implicitly teaching every player that is how the game is meant to be played during the tutorial, and first few levels of Dark Souls.
As someone who played the majority of Dark Souls 3 hiding behind a shield, all this anti-shield rhetoric caused me to question if I was the source of my own frustration. That other aforementioned criticism is that I found Dark Souls 3’s bosses, and combat to be hugely repetitive. However, I approached the overwhelming majority of the game’s different challenges in exactly the same way. Hiding behind a shield was the equivalent of walking into every fight with a hammer, and once you hit enough things with a hammer everything starts to look like a nail.
![Looking over the crumbling Castle Lothric in Dark Souls 3.](https://frostilyte.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ds3-castle-lothric.png?w=1024)
Part of that ultimately falls on me, but it’s no wonder that I played in this way when Dark Souls 3 taught me the exact same set of lessons as Dark Souls’ tutorial. I was given a shield immediately, and it was largely the determining factor in me beating the tutorial boss on my first attempt. By playing passively, I was able to slowly chip the boss down, and win, cementing the lesson that I could continue playing Dark Souls 3 in the same passive way that I had with Dark Souls.
This passivity was exacerbated by how inextricably broken my attribute points ended up being distributed so I could continue to hide behind a shield, while primarily attacking with magic. By about the mid-game I was doing very little damage to the majority of bosses, so I started building everything around the spell Pestilent Mist. This spell summons a poisonous cloud that deals a percentage of the target’s max health as damage. This meant that Pestilent Mist would always do the same amount of damage provided I could keep a boss within the radius of the spell. Hiding behind a shield made this a lot easier, so I continued doing this for the remainder of the game, as I watched every single boss fall to my noxious farts.
To really illustrate my point, here’s a video I originally posted on Twitter where I show how effective Pestilent Mist is at dispatching one of Dark Souls’ more notorious enemies: Mimics.
Does that look exciting to you? This is the gameplay equivalent of choosing the clearly marked dialogue options that skip combat in an RPG. It’s a deliberate decision to not engage with the game because dropping a fart cloud is safer.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about all of this – so much so that I wrote an entire article sharing what’s been running through my head for the past few weeks. I’m thoroughly convinced that Dark Souls 3 was such a miserable experience for me entirely because I wasn’t willing to actually engage with the game on its level. If I’d taken the time to be more involved, and engaged then I might have had a much better experience overall with the title.
Part of me thinks that it might be worthwhile to return to Lothric with this newfound perspective to see if it helps. However, the negative memory of the game is still so recent that I don’t know that I have the mental fortitude to engage with such an undertaking. I’m aware that’s an unsatisfactory way to end this article, but that’s where I’m at now. I guess if you ever read a sequel to this post, you’ll know what happened when I went back to Dark Souls 3.
I’m not the biggest fan of Dark Souls 3 for some of the same reasons you mentioned here – it has some great bosses, and of course the fluidity of the gameplay is a major step up from the original. But my main issue was always along the derivative line, where I couldn’t get past the glaring feeling that “Dark Souls wasn’t meant to be a series” in any way, shape, or form. Random bits of lore trail off into nothing, certain elements of Dark Souls are brought back, but aren’t expanded upon in any meaningful way, and I felt they didn’t go deep enough with the new lore they introduced – everything was left very surface level. I don’t *dislike* Dark Souls 3, but it didn’t feel like its own stand-alone title, nor did it feel like a super satisfying follow up to Dark Souls. Out of curiosity, did you play the DLC’s, or have you considered trying them at all?
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Obviously this isn’t substantiated by anything: Bamco (the publisher of all 3 games) probably saw the runaway success of Dark Souls, and immediately asked FromSoft to get back to work on the next game while the iron was hot. In fairness, they (From) likely also viewed it as an opportunity to fund some future more esoteric projects, but it’s hard to say exactly who said what back when the decision to make 2 sequels was made. I do tend to agree though that a lot of their dark-fantasy work feels more like they wanted to iterate across several IP instead of having more direct 1-to-1 sequels.
RE:DLC:
I..uh…got to the invisible lady in the snowy mansion, banged my head against the wall for about 2 hours, finally beat her second phase only to find out she was the first 3 phase boss in Dark Souls, and immediately gave up. The fact that I could only do magic damage, and she seemed to resist magic damage made each attempt extraordinarily tedious. At least the giant blob in Anor Londo was a fat walking hurtbox, so I could reliably chunk it down with Pestilent Mist despite it also resisting magic damage.
Following that escapade, I walked into the final boss arena, and beat it on my…I want to say second attempt. I don’t think it was my first, but it might have been my third. I just remember the final boss being a considerable step back in terms of difficulty compared to the invisible nun.
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The second dlc, The Ringed City, actually introduced my all time favorite boss from these games. It’s an optional dragon boss named Darkeater Midir. It can be a tough fight, one that many people dislike. But the fight has this epic feel of fighting a big dragon that I loved. I also think the that dlc in general is better than the first.
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This is exactly what I assumed happened, and it seems like FromSoft is happy to keep trying to refine their formula/work in this style, so I’m sure it wasn’t an off-putting proposal at the time. But I think it’s pretty clear that Dark Souls wasn’t written with any intention of a sequel, the same way that Bloodborne, Demon’s Souls, and Sekiro were. They’re all self contained stories.
That’s totally fair! I didn’t enjoy Ashes of Ariandel at all really… But the Ringed City really hit for me. I can’t say why exactly, but when I finished the Ringed City, I had a much more favourable view of Dark Souls 3 as a whole, just because of that DLC and the way it wrapped certain things up. It’s not perfect, and I have a few issues with certain enemies/areas, but overall, I think it’s probably the best of what DS3 has to offer in a more condensed setting. If you can ever muster the will to go back to DS3, I’d recommend giving the Ringed City a shot.
But if it’s any consolation from a random FromSoft shitboi herself, I haven’t ever been able to complete a second playthrough of DS3 since I’ve had the game. Compared to the dozens of times I’ve played through all of the others. So… TLDR the game always felt a bit superfluous to me, albeit with some great bosses and general gameplay.
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I do kind of wish I’d actually given the Ringed City a shot, doubly so after watching Geller’s video even if it does spoil the “twist” at the end. I’ll keep it in mind that I should stop into the DLC if I do make another go of things.
Honestly, that does make me feel better. I know a lot of online discourse claims either Dark Souls, or Bloodborne are FromSoft’s greatest creation, but I’ve run across a lot of people who’ve said as much about Dark Souls 3. I felt rather out of sorts when I just straight up didn’t have a good time in it. There are parts from all of these games that frustrate me (you got to experience that first hand lol), but it was weird to have an experience where the negatives outweighed the positives when I’ve seen so many folks praise DS3.
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It’s definitely a solid DLC, and like I said, it’s probably the best of DS3 (in my humble opinion) in a more.. short/contained experience. It’s not perfect, but leagues better than Ashes of Ariandel.
I always felt kinda off/like I had missed something seeing people praise 3 so highly, and there was a while there was DS3 was like.. the Breath of the Wild of online discourse – if you criticized the game, god help you type of deal. It wouldn’t be in my personal top three of FromSofts titles, let alone my favourite, but I understand why people enjoy it. I can definitely see where the frustrations would come from, and while I wish it had been a more positive experience for you, I do hope you enjoy it more if you decide to go back for another run.
((And sorry for the comment spam, I am incapable of stfu-ing about these games))
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I don’t have much else to say aside from that I hope you’re right. I’m at least more intrigued to go back, but then I find when people are really passionate about something that tends to be infectious. It’s hard not to get excited when that happens.
And on that note: I actually really like the amount of banter back and forth that we (and others) have brought to this post. It’s not often that I write something that inspires as much of a discussion, and that’s kinda cool (even if I don’t get to the comments immediately because I hate typing replies from my phone). Plus you don’t get reddit quality “git gud” or other such comments when discussing stuff here. Well…except for my buddy Valomek who do be doing a little bit of trolling lmao.
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It’s weird to think of this when Dark Souls 2 literally exists, but I would say DS3 is one of the more contentious titles in the community – I know a lot of people consider it the best, while others were pretty lukewarm about it. So there’s definitely passion on both sides of the argument lmao.
It’s kinda the best part of blogging, innit?? I love the discussions as well, personally. I saw a Tweet the other day that I’m sure you would have enjoyed, that involved someone being proud of an accomplishment in Dark Souls, and immediately getting dogpiled by the shitbois. Good times. So yeah, appreciate the ~normal~ and reasonable takes I can usually find here on WordPress, haha.
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To be honest I don’t really understand some of these criticisms. I mean, all of these games are essentially repeats of themselves to some degree. They’ve all got poison swamps, they’ve all got castles, they’ve all got some type of wooded area, etc. From Demons Souls, through the Dark Souls Trilogy, to Bloodborne, to Sekiro even, and ultimately ending with Elden Ring, they all tick the same boxes for levels and biomes. That’s not to say that some aren’t more similar than others, and yes DS3 does reuse some locations. But whenever I sign up for a souls like game, I expect all of this. The new Lords Of The Fallen felt like the biggest ripoff of Dark Souls that I’ve seen to date, but besides performance and design issues, I enjoyed that ripoff.
I’d also claim that most of these games are repetitive as well. Elden Ring in particular has padded its massive world with repeat bosses. It’s one of my many personal gripes with that particular game. But it’s still something I’ve seen in all of these games. So I find it odd that these particular criticisms arose for DS3 specifically.
Hey, if you didn’t enjoy it, there’s nothing wrong with that. I just simply don’t agree, or at least don’t see what you’re seeing here. Maybe I just interpreted what you’ve written the wrong way.
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I guess to respond to that, if you want to a restaurant that was known for their burgers, ordered one, and they served you a Big Mac (assuming you don’t dislike McDonald’s signature burger) how would you feel? Like sure it’s a burger, but I wanted to taste this restaurant’s burger, not McDonald’s signature burger.
When you compare FromSoft’s titles broadly then yes they have a lot of the same constituent elements, but the issue I took with DS3 in particular was how closely all of those elements align to DS1. There’s no confusing the locations from Sekiro, Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls, but you *could* confuse areas from Dark Souls Remastered and Dark Souls 3. That’s how similar a lot of the game ends up feeling. If you just want another Big Mac then I can see the appeal of that, but I don’t really see the point in playing a near identical sequel when I can simply replay the original title.
I dunno if that food comparison made a whole lot of sense, but that’s the best way I could think to explain it after thinking about it for almost 15 hours now lmao
RE: Elden Ring – that goes well beyond the scope of a post where I’m sharing my subject experience with Dark Souls 3, and how some recent video essays that I watched caused me to reflect on, and question that experience. I’d actually tend to agree with you that Elden Ring is far more repetitive thanks largely to its tedious third act, but bringing that up here feels like a bit of a non sequitur outside of broadly comparing all of FromSoft’s titles to one another which is something I’m not even equipped to do.
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I understand what you’re saying. That just wasn’t at all my experience. Besides Anor Lando I can’t recall any other times where I really thought that DS3 felt like a rehash of DS1. I acknowledge the similarities that exist, but as I said in my last reply those similarities to a degree exist across almost all of these titles. So I wouldn’t say they stood out to me more than usual.
However there was a lot more time that passed between DS1 and DS3 for me, where as you played them in much closer proximity. So those similarities could have felt more severe on your end.
My point with Elden Ring was just to say that there’s been at least one other game that’s done what you’re criticizing DS3 for, but to a harsher degree. But I guess that was pointless to say in this case. So fair enough, disregard that.
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Gotcha.
There’s definitely a case to be made for the less than a year long gap that existed between me playing the 2 games. I actually ran into something similar playing Tears of the Kingdom (while I was sick with covid earlier this year), and quickly became bored with it because I just played Breath of the Wild. Those games take place on largely the same map, which really exacerbated the feeling of fatigue.
There’s like…an entire post’s worth of stuff to breakdown about Elden Ring demonstrably stretching itself waaaaaaaay too thin. I had planned to write something about that, twice now actually, I just left the posts on the cutting room floor in both cases. It wasn’t really coming together, and (funnily) was very repetitive to read. Though I might have been able to get away with a post about repetition being itself repetitive as a bit of a meta commentary lol
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Much as I enjoy DS3, I think there’s something to be said that the game still failed you. Which goes back to the hbomberguy videos. Sure, the game may have a more fun way to play, but the game isn’t really conditioning you to play that way. In fact, the game is basically rewarding you for “cheesing” (for a quick and easy term) encounters. You were simply following what the game was telling you.
Of course if you’re not having fun, figuring out if there’s a way you can have more fun or just quitting are good responses. Glad that worked out for you.
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My only regret is that it took me until one of the DLCs to finally put it down. So much wasted time.
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Whoa. I have a huge problem with this post. Absolutely attacked and savaged by this, I was!
“This is the gameplay equivalent of choosing the clearly marked dialogue options that skip combat in an RPG. It’s a deliberate decision to not engage with the game because dropping a fart cloud is safer.”
Getting out of combat by way of conversation can be the most fun ever! 😀
I mean… Not *every* time. I have a current SP BG3 campaign where I’m playing a Dark Urge Monk character, but attempting to resist it and talking way out of combats where possible…
…And then a MP campaign where we’re just going ham on anything that even looks like it might be thinking about getting in our way. And I’m a Paladin in that one. xD
Both are awesome!
… That’s what this post was about right? What are we talking about again?
Oh yeah, Dark Souls 3.
I hear you on the shield thing; I really had to push myself not to rely on one heavily in DS3. So I went Ultra Greatsword.
… Then pumped up stats high enough by the end so that I could 1H them and still use a shield… >.>
I did MOSTLY 2H though, and I won’t lie, it was probably more a fun experience.
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I mean…yeah obviously XD
I think we can both agree that in the majority of games what I said about dialogue is true versus the small (but growing!) number of games that are actually trying to make viable speech related alternatives to combat that help to immerse the player deeper in the game. I’d almost say that BG3 is a weaker example compared to stuff like Disco Elysium, or Fallout: New Vegas thanks to its more…limited selection of speech related tricks.
Well at least it wasn’t just me. It’s just kind of hard to give up on the safety net of a shield when the game sort of trains you into using one. I’d never really thought about it, but that might be why Sekiro is still my favourite of FromSoft’s titles. There is 1 way to play that game, and Sekiro is going to make sure you learn it. That focus means players are cut-off from the greater flexibility of options they have in FromSoft’s other games, but it does put them down the path of playing the game in what the developers believe is the most fun way.
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Or maybe FromSoft should have designed a game that was fun ….. Regardless of how you play, tough call I know.
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That’s crazy talk
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Oh you.
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I had a very similar experience with my first playthrough, both in dismissing it as derivative and having to learn to stop hiding behind shields. I still have more fun going back to the other games for whatever reason, but 3 does have some great boss fights and callbacks.
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It’s always reassuring to know that others had a similar experience to my own. Especially when I was over here thinking I was a little crazy for the past year because of this.
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