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fume-knight-of-shovelry · 7 years

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Thoughts on Dark Souls 3

(Note: I made this right after I finished the base game back in April. I just wanted to clean this up and get it published while going through my drafts. This only applies to the base game.)

All right, first off, I’m going to clarify that I love Dark Souls 3 and have not played Dark Souls 1 (was too young when it came out to play an M-rated game).

That being said, Dark Souls 3 has some serious issues. I know Fromsoft will never see this, and in all honesty most companies should ignore everything on tumblr (otherwise BioWare’s future games would be awful, awful, awful and Overwatch would be doomed). I still wanted to verbalize this, though.

1: The Bosses

I cannot be the only person who thinks that, ironically, Dark Souls 3 has more “Armored Knight” bosses than Dark Souls 2.

I mean, if we compare the bosses, there are 32 in Dark Souls 2.

The following could count as “Dudes in Armor”:

The Pursuer

The Looking Glass Knight

The Ruin Sentinels

The Old Dragonslayer

Velstadt, the Royal Aegis (who is awesome)

Vendrick (who’s naked, so maybe it doesn’t count?)

The Dragonriders/The Twin Dragonriders (counting these as two bosses)

Throne Watcher and Throne Defender

The Gank Squad (okay, only two of them are in armor, but we’ll just count these guys/girls/whatever)

Sir Alonne (who is awesome)

Fume Knight (who is super awesome)

Burnt Ivory King

So that’s...thirteen bosses out of 32, twelve if we exclude Vendrick. Of the 23 bosses in the vanilla game, 10 of them are dudes in armor (9 if you exclude Vendrick).

Let’s compare that to Dark Souls 3. Of the 19 bosses, the following could be counted as “Dudes in Armor”:

Iudex Gundyr (or, at least, his first phase)

Vordt of the Boreal Valley (he’s got the behavior of an animal, but still counts)

The Abyss Watchers

Pontiff Sulyvahn (who is a great boss)

Dancer of the Boreal Valley

Champion Gundyr

Lorian, Elder Prince, and Lothric, Younger Prince (okay, only one of them is in armor and the boss is badass, but c’mon, they count)

Nameless King (phase 2)

Soul of Cinder

So, that’s 9 out of 19.

So 47% of the Dark Souls 3 bosses are armored knights, while 37% of the Dark Souls 2 bosses are (counting the DLC and excluding Vendrick: it’s 40% if we count the base game without Vendrick). So, percentage wise, I’m mostly splitting hairs since the difference doesn’t seem substantial (although 10% is nothing to ignore, so we’ll have to wait and see how the DS3 DLC shapes up).

While the overall quality of the non-knight bosses in Dark Souls 3 is better compared to those in Dark Souls 2 (Prowling Magus, Blue Smelter, and Royal Rat Vanguard, I’m looking at you), I still feel a bit disappointed in the buildup to the bosses in DS3. Plus, there aren’t all that many optional bosses, and, except the entirety of the Archdragon Peak area, most of these optional bosses aren’t well-hidden.

Remember exploring the now-unlocked areas in the Lost Bastille and coming across the Gargoyles and the Bellkeeper covenant, or finding the Darklurker at the end of the Pilgrim questline? There aren’t too any bosses like that in DS3. The DLC might fix this, though.

The Lords of Cinder are quite good, but two exceptions stand out; Yhorm and Aldrich. While Yhorm’s fight is a love letter to a Demon’s Souls boss, it still feels like it embodies a critical flaw in the game; sacrificing interesting or innovative ideas on the altar of nostalgia. Aldrich is appropriately horrifying and a gut-punch to DS1 players, but after the initial shock, goes down without too much trouble. On the other hand, the Soul of Cinder is an epic love letter to Dark Souls 1 and 2, and many of the other bosses are excellent additions to the Souls boss repertoire, there are still plenty of disappointments (Deacons of the Deep, Crystal Sage, Ancient Wyvern, and the Greatwood [arguably]).

So, in conclusion, while the bosses are excellent, I hope the DLCs do a bit more to hide the optional ones, increase the number of optional ones, and diversify the boss lineup.

2: The PVP

I’ll be careful about blanket statements, but the PVP seems to have overall been received much more poorly in Dark Souls 3 compared to Dark Souls 2. Part of this is flaws in the covenant design, but a lot of it is the core design choices of this game and how they differ from before.

Let’s start with the positives. The absence of Soul Memory is an obvious plus, making it much easier to find appropriately-leveled and geared friends and enemies. The online connectivity is the best it’s ever been, with fewer instances of game-based lag, and generally smooth hitboxes even for notoriously problematic weapon classes. Covenants once again offer a place for players to carve themselves out in the world, and the differences between some of them lead to far more creative gameplay then we’ve ever seen before. Increasing the number of possible players in a world leads to even more chaotic brawls.

Unfortunately, there are a slew of negatives to go along with this.

For one, you can no longer be invaded in areas where you have cleared a boss; while I can understand the desire to make an area permanently “safer”, this means that end-game players are left in the lurch for areas to PVP in.

[NOTE: As of the original time of writing this, the arenas were not yet announced. With the presence of arenas, this issue has been largely addressed.]

All weapons in a weapon class have identical movesets. This makes it more fair when it comes to predicting possible attacks and helps unify weapon balance, but robs the ability of some weapons to stand out based on their specific moveset (Santier’s Spear, anyone?), meaning that good weapons are determined by stats alone and there are far fewer viable options.

On that note, Whips, Scythes, and Lances are essentially nonexistent or so poor as to be unviable choices (with the lone exception of Friede’s Great Scythe). Gone are the days when dual bleed whips were a viable strategies and the Grand Lance’s running attack was the terror of tight corridors.

And now, we come to poise. Whoo boy, poise. “Working as intended” memes aside, poise is a difficult issue to pin down. Making it too strong leads to the death of fast weapon builds and the overabundance of tanks. Unfortunately, the opposite occurred, and for a long time after launch, fast straight swords (Estoc and Dark Sword spam) ruled the meta, and running heavy armor was essentially worthless. The situation hasn’t been fixed, but people have adapted a bit.

Lastly, we need to address the covenants, which are the worst they’ve ever been. Never mind that some of the rewards are worthless or poorly placed (Mound-Makers get Warmth? Really?). For weeks after launch, auto-summon covenants (Blue Sentinels/Blades of the Darkmoon and the Watchdogs of Farron) weren’t working at all, making levelling up in these covenants a near impossibility. The Blue Sentinels/Blades of the Darkmoon were hit particularly hard by this, given that there are no rewards for joining the Way of the Blue and thus people didn’t have much incentive to equip it, further killing the chances for “Bluebros” to get summoned.

Perhaps in anticipation of this, much like how covenant spells were available in NG++ from Chancellor Wellager in Dark Souls 2, some enemies drop covenant items. While they shouldn’t drop regularly enough to disincentivize online play, the drop rate for some items is inexcusable. I never want to see another Silver Knight again; far too many hours were wasted hunting for Proofs of a Concord Kept, and it’s only marginally better for Wolf’s Blood Swordgrass and Pale Tongues.

That being said, the positive from above are worth noting, and being able to swap covenants instantly and keep progress is a welcome and overdue boon.

3: The Levels

I’ll preface this by pointing out that the levels in Dark Souls 3, mostly, are vast, interconnected webs with shortcuts, interesting navigational tricks, and clear connections to other areas. From the tower in Farron Keep, for example, you can see the Undead Settlement, the High Wall of Lothric and Lothric Castle, the Cathedral of the Deep, and (maybe) Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. The areas make good use of verticality and looping-back to feed into a growing sense of comfort with the ins and outs of a place of exploration.This is all fantastic.

However, in terms of the sheer variety, Dark Souls 3 feels like it drops the ball. A few too many areas have the ambiance of a cathedral (sections that stand out in particular include parts of the High Wall of Lothric and the entirety of the Cathedral of the Deep, excluding the graveyard portion), to the extent that once you get to areas like Lothric Castle, I was a little sick of grand arches and choir chambers. Plus, almost every area you visit has already been colonized, inhabited, or otherwise has some continuous sentient presence. The primary reason areas like the Untended Graves stood out, aside from the genuine creepiness of the whole place, was the sensation of isolation that wasn’t really present when tearing through the Undead Settlement or Irithyll of the Boreal Valley.

In addition, some areas are of baffling length given their placement. The Road of Sacrifices feels poorly paced; besides the section with Corvians at the beginning, one can essentially bolt in a straight line from Anri and Horace to either of the two connecting areas. Though the Consumed King’s Garden and Smouldering Lake are optional, these areas have the distinct sensation of halting at awkward times. The Garden has a few wandering abyss-snake dudes and some confusingly-placed Cathedral Knights, but ends after a single shortcut. The Smouldering Lake is a confusing mess of tunnels that can be skipped by…running in a straight line from the entrance, if one is ballsy enough. Sure, deactivating the ballista is an interesting operation, as is finding all the goodies, but the Lake does feel like a strange tribute to DS1’s most hated area. Anor Londo made a little bit of sense as a beloved an important area from DS1, but Lost Izalith?

Unfortnately, the Profaned Capital does not have “it’s optional” as an excuse. After the confusing but rewarding hell of the Irithyll Dungeon, an area with the tagline “Profaned Capital” brings to mind something more like Lothric Castle, but instead is a very fast L-shaped pathway towards a boss that sacrifices interesting mechanics for nostalgia, with an optional hellswamp.

On that note, the amount of poison in Dark Souls 3 feels a little overbearing. Farron Keep on its own is worse than any previous poison zone, and even if they’re short, the Consumed King’s Garden and the swamp section of the Profaned Capital feel like an extra kick in the nuts.

The larger problem I have with the level design is actually less the level design, and more the world design with respect to player choice. Dark Souls 3 is pretty much a linear shot the whole way through, with only two notable diverging points; whether you kill the Deacons of the Deep before clearing the Catacombs of Carthus, and whether you kill Aldrich or Yhorm first. Technically, one can also get to Lothric Castle early by fighting the Dancer of the Boreal Valley before Vordt, but you can’t a actually get to the Lorian and Lothric, or even the Grand Archives, early. In comparison to Dark Souls 2, where you could not only choose which area to go to first (within a limited framework), but also which boss you could fight first, the restriction feels more than a little unwelcome.

That being said, most of the game’s areas are very well-designed. As mentioned, Irithyll Dungeon is a confusing, claustrophobic, terrifying and unforgiving environment, and the Cathedral of the Deep offers plenty of shortcuts (developer-made or otherwise) to make navigating the well-designed building easier. Archdragon Peak is of just the right size for an area so off the beaten path, and the Grand Archives are a fantastic final wall to throw up in front of players before the end of the game, involving heavy vertical as opposed to horizontal travel. And especially in comparison to Dark Souls 2, as mentioned above, even if the player has less choice in where to travel, the ways those areas link up is much more fluid and interesting.

On an unrelated note that I couldn’t think of any other place to put, the lack of differences between NG and NG+ and beyond are noticeable. In Dark Souls 2, new enemies and items were very common and the difficulty jump was noticeable. In Dark Souls 3, there are new rings, and that’s pretty much it. It’s a small issue, but combined with the lack of build variety, really hurts the game’s replayability.

4: The Story

The story is the part that hurts the most for me personally. While the characters and plotlines introduced in this game can be genuinely interesting, there’s no way to beat around the bush. Far too much of the story feels like it’s directly repeating Dark Souls 1.

While some of my complaints are to do with the dropping of interesting threads and characters from Dark Souls 2 (in the base game, there are a handful of items and areas referencing it, and the only enemies that carry over are the fucking poison bugs; even Yhorm turns out to not be a Dark Souls 2 Giant, although he’s implicitly related to the Giant Lord), I’m actually mostly frustrated because it means that the genuinely interesting threads from Dark Souls 3 get dropped. The entirety of material relating to “The Deep” ends up a dead end, Lothric itself feels like it’s repeating Lordran and Drangleic in uninteresting ways (even if that’s a theme of the series), and some of the most interesting original areas (Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, the Grand Archives) turn out to be connected at the hip to key elements of Dark Souls 1 that take over the new plotlines. Several new characters are essentially repeating roles from previous games, either in new coating (Lautrec for Leonhard), or even with the same appearance (Siegmeyer and Siegward [while I love both of them, the latter feels a little too much like silly fanservice at first]), and some of the new characters don’t…really go anywhere. Greirat finds an old woman’s bone and…dies after a while? Cornyx and Karla don’t go anywhere, although Karla has enough interesting questions to excuse her case.

And even for a Souls game, some of the material feels like such a tiny amount of substance is given to it that attempting to make connections is more frustrating than interesting. How on earth did VaatiVidya get enough material to make videos on the Angels of Lothric and Londor when very few items make any substantial connections? Again, what on earth is going on with Sulyvahn, the Church of the Deep, Carthus and more?

That being said, there are some excellent storylines and questions that pop up, and many of the previous callbacks enhance the story of the original Dark Souls. Again, the Untended Graves pops out as a positive, adding a great deal not only to the game’s story, but extending the importance of a seemingly silly character (Ludleth), and several storylines pan out in interesting ways. In general, the purely original elements of the story and characters stand out as great; some of the previous tie-backs fall comparatively flat.

Conclusions

Vocal people were spending the last 2 years whining about Dark Souls 2 and the developers tried so hard to recapture Dark Souls 1 that it kind of feels like DS3 fell flat in both respects. Genuinely good aspects from the second game were discarded for reasons that really aren’t clear, although they deserve props for learning from DS1′s mistakes and what DS2 didn’t do well.

I feel like Dark Souls 3...doesn’t really have its own identity. It blends elements from the previous entries very, very well but I genuinely think the story is too hung up on DS1, even with the excellent references to DS2 (Shield of Want and theories regarding Eleum Loyce being the Profaned Capital/Irithyll, anyone?).

Dark Souls 3 is an excellent game. At the same time, it feels like it’s trapped in an identity crisis between the first Dark Souls, and, occasionally BloodBorne.

#dark souls 3 spoilers #dark souls 2 spoilers #dark souls #post #i still love dark souls 3 #but it has problems

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operationrainfall · 4 years

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I’m still not entirely sure what to make of DEAD OR SCHOOL. At first glance, it appeared to be the love child of Senran Kagura, Resident Evil and Parasite Eve. After playing it for several hours, it’d be more accurate to call it a mixture of Senran Kagura, The House of the Dead series and any Metroidvania. In short, it’s a very ambitious game. Though I didn’t know this about it initially, it’s actually a crowdfunded darling by Studio Nanafushi, and it got published by the fine folks at Marvelous. (They probably appreciated the similarities to Senran Kagura.) It’s also a game that combines fan service, hideous mutants, and complex yet immersive combat in one package. The question then is were all those elements able to shine through the layers of awkward design choices?

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At first blush, it’s easy to believe DEAD OR SCHOOL will be a poorly written, derivative mess. And it’s true, there are a fair share of grammatical errors, as well as some very odd choices of punctuation. Despite all that, there’s actually a really compelling story here. It takes the zombie apocalypse genre and mixes it together with Sukeban elements. (I hope I’m using that term correctly.) Basically, a game that shows women can be strong and independent, and not reliant on society or men to save them. And since this is a game inspired by Japanese popular culture, there’s also a good deal of fan service in DEAD OR SCHOOL, such as main character Hisako wearing a sexy school uniform that, when torn, magically increases her power in proportion to the amount of exposed skin. I know some of you are getting turned off already, but bear with me. Despite the silly and over-the-top elements in the game, and despite the aforementioned design problems, there’s a diamond in the rough here.

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The plot of DEAD OR SCHOOL revolves around a cataclysmic war between humanity and horrible humans turned mutants, and the aftermath of that climactic war. Humans have been pushed completely underground, living in sewers and train stations, pretty much any large abandoned space. Things are calm until some silly young girls discover an elevator to the surface, and are attacked by mutants. They’re only saved thanks to the sudden and dramatic intervention of Hisako, who despite her unremarkable appearance is apparently a mutant killing machine. She rips through a horde of them bare handed like a little red-haired Hulk. While I suspect there’s perhaps a reason for her abilities, three levels into the game it hasn’t been explained. Regardless, Hisako is a total bad ass. Filled with her grandmother’s stories of the surface world and the paradise of the institution of schools, she ventures forth to discover the truth and establish a school of her own. Which might sound silly, but in a dystopian nightmare like, say, a pandemic, one starts to appreciate the stability a school represents.

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With the basic concept out of the way, let’s move onto where DEAD OR SCHOOL is strongest: the gameplay. Though it definitely qualifies as a 2D beat ’em up, it’s also very much a Metroidvania. Each area you explore features a series of interconnected rooms, complete with a mini map display. Better yet, as you fight you level up, growing stronger incrementally. You also increase your parameters by fulfilling sidequests and rescuing survivors. Basic stuff like HP or stamina will get increased, but one of the more important categories is weight. Every weapon you have equipped (You can alternate between three different weapons at a time.) contributes to your overall weight. That weight is increased by modifying the weapons with gears, adding new abilities and even randomly changing the weapon’s inherent ability. Just keep in mind, if your overall weight ever exceeds the upper limit, you’ll be rendered unable to attack, so you’ll have to work within your capacity.

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I love how easy it is to alternate between your three equipped weapons with a press of the shoulder button, and it makes combat fast and furious. The only limiting factor is your stamina. Most of the time I didn’t notice this at all, but when things got hot and heavy, I definitely did. When your stamina is depleted, it takes longer to recover. This is problematic, since stamina lets you do things like attack, jump, dodge, etc. When my stamina was depleted, I’d usually take a hit while trying to dodge, but not have enough stamina to do so. To help counter this, Hisako can crouch. While crouched her stamina recovers rather quickly, so you’ll need to balance your time between rushing, attacking, dodging and crouching. Again, normally not a problem, but when you’re facing hordes of mutants or one of the game’s intense bosses, you’ll need to moderate your actions efficiently.

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If it all sounds stuffy so far, fear not. The combat in DEAD OR SCHOOL is actually really fun. All the weapons you use have ammo (even the melee weapons like swords, for some reason). Once out of ammo, your ranged weapons, such as flamethrowers, grenade launchers and machine guns, cannot be used at all. The saving grace is that once you reach a save point, all the ammo for your equipped arsenal is replenished. But sometimes it’s a long trek between save points, and the game loves to throw large groups of mutants at you. Often you’ll even be locked in a room until you’ve cleared them out. I worried I’d run out of ammo, and that does indeed happen. Thankfully, your bladed weapons can still be used once out of “ammo”. They just deal half as much damage as they normally would. As a result, I really came to rely on my katanas and axes more than my ranged weapons, though those can also help you in a pinch. Every time you level up, you’ll get a skill point, which can be allocated to a skill tree for each type of weapon. You can bet I poured a lot into my katana, making it deal more critical hits, inflict backstab damage to foes, and even unlocking a powerful whirlwind slash. That said, it’s important to deposit skill points in each tree, since you never know what passive abilities you’ll find there, such as increased stamina or extra durability for your weapons.

More School on Page 2! ->

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Like I said earlier, DEAD OR SCHOOL has lots of Metroidvania elements, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a proper example of the genre. You don’t really get new abilities to help you explore. Instead, you’ll find key cards and such to unlock new areas, and you can use Hisako’s nimble acrobatics to get around. She can run pretty fast, double jump, and even cling to and swing from certain structures. You’re able to explore as much as you want to, and you are free to ignore optional sidequests. That said, it’s good to try a few, since each one will reward you with experience, and you’ll need to keep your level about even with the foes in your area. For example, when I got to the third level of the game, I quickly encountered a lot of foes at level 18, while I was only at 14. I was able to do okay initially, but then I wandered too far afield and found some level 21 foes. Suffice to say, they walloped me. Thankfully, the game is generous, and you don’t lose any experience or progress when you die (and I died a lot). The only downside is you do lose some cash, which isn’t that big a deal. All you use cash for is to buy parts and weapons, which are randomly populated in the shop you can access through the save points. Usually there’s a lot of items you can totally ignore. That said, I strongly recommend you either buy a weapon with a drone, or equip a part that provides a drone. Those little bastards saved my ass more than once, since they hover around you hitting foes with lasers. They’re not fast or super powerful, but they can hit foes from a distance, and they have unlimited ammo. Whenever I found an irritating section in DEAD OR SCHOOL, I would usually camp where a foe couldn’t hit me, and let my drone whittle their health away. Sure it’s cheap, but sometimes you need to be a bastard to get through this game.

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Overall, I do feel the balance in DEAD OR SCHOOL is mostly fair. Generally you’ll only be losing to a boss because you’re not paying attention to their attacks and avoiding them properly. Or maybe you’re not timing those dodges well, and missing out on the enemy being temporarily slowed down. But every once in a while you’ll find something that might be frustrating in this game. A good example is in Harajuku. One area had me fight wave after wave of foes and then get to two rotating gears I had to navigate. Problem was, I was instantly locked into a fight room, which was tricky since it involved moving gear teeth. Adding insult to injury, once I survived that, I stumbled upon another fight room, and once past that, it was punctuated by a terrifying slasher mini boss fight. This goes to show that though most of the combat mechanics are well balanced, sometimes the developers didn’t have a fair and balanced approach to stage layouts. It’s nothing that is game breaking, but having more save points or even less continuous stretches of mutant hordes would have definitely helped, especially considering I’m only a few levels into the game, and I can tell there’s plenty more. I can only imagine how difficult things will become later in the experience.

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It’s no secret by now that I exclusively play my Switch in handheld mode. And yes, I’m aware that doing so often means the games run less optimally or that the sound is especially muted. That’s very much not the case in DEAD OR SCHOOL. The game runs very smoothly, even with large groups of foes, and the music is catchy and does a great job of motivating you. Even the sound effects are really dynamic and attention grabbing, from the rat-a-tat of your gunfire to the shrieks of rage or pain from Hisako to the groans of filthy mutant scum. It does a great job of drawing you into the experience, and kept me entertained.

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Now that I’ve talked about the good, it’s time to unveil what DEAD OR SCHOOL did wrong. Earlier I touched upon the translation of the game, and how it has odd grammatical choices and bad punctuation. Frankly, most of the dialogue is forgettable. It doesn’t do a good job of showcasing the personalities of the characters, maybe with the exception of Yurika. She very much comes across as the mature woman trying to look professional yet being a total spaz. A bigger problem I have is understanding all the menus. Some things the game does a good job of explaining, such as the many tutorials for combat. Much as I appreciate that, I still don’t understand all the ins and outs of weapon customization, just as one example. Plus they can just be tricky to navigate, such as the parts menu. Having a way to organize or filter them all would be amazing. And while visually I like a lot here, such as the comic book illustrations, the way enemies jump in combat from the background and the various mutant designs, the models during gameplay felt constrained and small. Plus it’s just disconcerting how each foe has a wide red outline. Oh and much as I love the save points, it’s annoying how every time you use one, all surrounding foes respawn, including fight rooms that lock you in. Perhaps the wonkiest is the physics in DEAD OR SCHOOL. If you’re on anything other than a flat surface, things go to hell. Hisako slides down diagonal slants and even gets caught in stage geometry surprisingly frequently. On the plus side, the same also happens with foes, so more than once I dealt with a nasty mutant by trapping it in stage geometry then murdering it with my drone.

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All things said, I did really enjoy what I’ve played thus far in DEAD OR SCHOOL. I just worry it’ll be a challenge to beat the game given the issues I’ve covered, as well as some others, such as the game seemingly forgetting settings I input when I started the game. But despite all those rough spots, I feel there’s a really promising adventure here. Sure, it still needs work and polish, but if you can look past that, it’s a really unique title that many will enjoy. Just get ready for when Hisako has to kill a tank…

IMPRESSIONS: DEAD OR SCHOOL I'm still not entirely sure what to make of DEAD OR SCHOOL. At first glance, it appeared to be the love child of…

#DEAD or SCHOOL #fan service #fun #glitchy #Marvelous #Metroidvania #mutants #nintendo switch #PC #PS4 #RPG #Studio Nanafushi

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