Dark Souls III Review – Excruciatingly Entertaining!

[section_title title=”Gameplay”]

Gameplay

Case – BitFenix Shinobi XL
Motherboard – MSI Z87-MPOWER MAX                                                                           CPU – Intel i7 4770K
RAM – Kingston Beast Series 16GB 2133mhz DDR3
GPU – OcUK GeForce GTX 970 4096MB GDDR5
PSU – Corsair TX850 850W
CPU Cooler – Corsair Hydro Series H100i All-In-One
SSD – OCZ Vertex 4 256GB
HDD – Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Internal

The gameplay in this series is something that really throws me out of my comfort zone, first thing being I have to use a control pad. This began with the first game when it was all but unplayable on keyboard and mouse, so I bought myself a 360 control pad for PC just to play the game… Yes, I did that once… While it made it easier, I did have to get used to the gameplay because of how different it is compared to other games like it. With the gamepad you use the RB and RT buttons to attack, then the LB button to block and LT to hit with the shield. It took me a decent amount of time to adjust to the game’s style, but when I did I must admit I really began to enjoy myself, especially when I forced myself to go against the harder enemies, dear lord.

My favourite part of this and the rest of the series is the blood stain mechanic where you can see how others approach certain sections of the game. I don’t think that it particularly helps other than when a harder enemy is coming up, because 9/10 that blood stain will end with a swift death. The way you are showed the person attempting the section is in the form of a red sort of hologram that is usually an over-enthusiastic player at the beginning of the game sprinting into battle valiantly, only to be destroyed in under 10 seconds.

We see magic make a return to the series which features the same magic meter that is from Demon’s Souls. The other returning feature is how to regain health with the Estus Flask which is a god send, but only having 3 uses between bonfires is one hell of a task to complete without dying multiple times. Archery was improved in this game with draw speed being the most significant improvement, this was apparently inspired by Legolas from the LOTR series, which is pretty damn cool.

Apparently the limitations of Bloodbourne caused Miyazaki to rejoin the Souls’ team and work on this new title of the genre. Thankfully with Dark Souls III coming to the PC it means that we will get a game that will run on a PC far better than any console, but the console guys and gals can get what they want too! If you’re considering getting this game, it probably makes sense to know that this game will require more amounts of rolling around which is probably an area where I suck the most, I’m so bad with it I still get hit when I’m rolling around… anyways…