I'm sure just from my rating for this game alone the Dragon Teeth weapons are getting pried for bashing my skull in already, but please hear me out.
If you've read my reviews on the other two games in this series and Bloodborne, then you'll know how much this series means to me, so know that I don't like it anymore than you do when I say that the biggest issue I had with this game by far is that so much of it feels like we've been here before. Like it hasn't evolved or changed very much, and it does suffer for it.
Surprisingly though, I don't think that much - if any - of this was down to outright lack of creativity, like most games I have this criticism for would probably be the victim of. The cyclical nature of the world, how it bends time around, and how no one ever seems to truly die in this universe has been thoroughly beat into the player since the second game, and even more so in this one.
And while I can forgive the occasional re-used area or NPC from previous games because of this fascinating world they've built up so well, at times it almost felt to me like they might as well have all been re-used. Not that the areas or NPC quests, or even the story in general is all that bad even, just that...we've seen it all before.
I can't really pick out any areas that are outright bad (aside from the bloody poison swamp they keep insisting is part of these games), which stands in stark contrast to Dark Souls II, but nor can I pick out many areas that really stood out to me as something special. Even if they're well designed taken on their own, having played the first two games, they feel so lacking in imagination.
The same goes for the NPC quests, a fair amount of which I found quite dull. To be honest, the most exciting ones were the ones centering previous characters in the series, because at least I got a little shot of fanfare from them.
And the overall story, while some of the individual areas do have interesting lore as ever, feels way too much like we're just repeating the first game again. The fire's fading, go light it again. Cool. And no, the fact that it's supposedly never faded this much before, or that we're now "Unkindled" instead of Undead (you still die and get revived at your last bonfire, and it's still implied you're somehow cursed, only this time, you have little embers flying off your body, oooooh) does not make it feel original enough for the conclusion of this trilogy.
It's only if you find a hidden optional area, the entrance to which is not particularly intuitive, or do a particular NPC questline during which any number of things could go wrong, that you'll find something that makes the story any more interesting than just "go link that damn fire again".
So what was I talking about when I said that even though the areas aren't badly designed, they don't feel too special to me? Well, it's still really bloody satisfying to completely pick an area apart and find all the loot scattered about it, there are the ever present shortcuts that feel really good to find, and the lore in many of these areas is still interesting, but it's all just starting to feel so tired to me. Castles, cathedrals, catacombs and cities, the four C's are all present in this game, and so little of them feel special, even if the art direction that went into this is something to behold.
By far the most unique area in the game to me is a completely optional one, and not one that is particularly easy to find either. And while I'm at it, the world design this time around...well, if you thought Bloodborne was too linear, you are gonna be pretty ticked off at this. The game is by far the most linear in the series, and if you're expecting anything as mind-blowing as the lift in the Undead Parish leading back to Firelink Shrine, you will be sorely disappointed.
The best example of art design in this game by far is the enemies, which unlike the area design, is great and produces a lot of unique and memorable images. Same goes for the bosses, while the locations they're in are not terribly interesting to me, there are still more good bosses than bad ones...even if the bad ones are always there in these games.
The game looks and sounds pretty great (although another source of disappointment for me was unfortunately the soundtrack, nowhere near as good as either DS1 or Bloodborne in my opinion), and in terms of gameplay, again...not much has changed. The biggest change to combat is probably the inclusion of weapon arts, special attacks each weapon has that will use up some of your mana. Some weapons have really cool special attacks, but I still never found myself using them very much, so I guess I can forgive this as no harm, no foul.
Other than that and a few quality of life improvements and general tightening of mechanics, the gameplay is the same, if a bit faster in the wake of Bloodborne's release, and it's at this point after all this negative talk that I realise that most of what I like about this game is that it's more Dark Souls, and Dark Souls is great. You can write that off as me fanboying, but at the time of this game's release, it was only five years after the first game sent its tidal waves rippling through the industry, and only two years after the first notable Souls-likes started popping up, so I don't consider it wholly unoriginal for this reason.
So because it's more Dark Souls, you know that what you're getting is a difficult but satisfying quest, a lot of weapons, armour, spells, and general build variety to mess about with (and if you're expecting me to talk about balance when I don't even know how to build a proper PVP setup and only played this through once for this review, you can expect to be wrong), and jolly cooperation and PVP. And I love all that stuff, so all I can really tell you is while I could mention a ton of little annoyances, and a ton of little things I like, the most helpful recommendation I can give is if you like Dark Souls, you probably won't complain too much about having more of it. At least if you're me, which you aren't, so maybe you shouldn't be listening to me at all and go do what you want. I do encourage it.
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