First, I went Platinum on both Scholar of the First Sin and Dark Souls 3. Okay, that last part is bullshit. I still need Master of Miracles for Dark Souls 3 (get rid of the Concord Kepts from the Silver Knights in Anor Londo… ) But still, I’ve played both games more times than I can count.

So how hard is it? Average. Dark Souls has this reputation of being difficult, but I don’t think it is. Yes, enemies hit hard. But you too.

No “bullet sponges” here. Did you get hit for half your health bar? Guess what, you can hit them back for almost as much. You’ll die a lot, and unlike many other games, there isn’t an overly generous checkpoint system.

But know this: my son (with a little help from SunBro on my part) beat Dark Souls 2, including the DLC, when he was 11 years old. He had just finished Dark Souls 3 last weekend. he is 13

With that being said, after hundreds of hours invested in Dark Souls 3, here is my short review.

Let’s start with the negatives first:

The Poise system is poorly designed (Last time I checked, there is a belief among the community that the Poise system does not in fact work at all. There is supposed to be code in the game that would allow for a working Poise system, but it was removed or ‘turned off’ before release. The developers, to my knowledge, deny this, which is fine. But that means they handled the mechanics very, very poorly.)

“It’s working as intended.” So you intended for it to malfunction…

What is balance and why is it important?

Every time you hit an enemy, you have a chance, depending on their poise and your weapon, to interrupt their movement (preventing them from dodging, dashing, rolling, and most importantly, attacking).

This is called wobble. The movement is interrupted and they are hit. A stunned enemy is a defenseless enemy. A dead enemy.

This system applies to both you and enemies in the game.

How poise used to work: In previous Dark Souls games, you could wear armor that would increase your poise, making it harder to stagger and interrupt your attacks.

How it works now: It doesn’t. Any enemy can interrupt most attacks with any weapon you use.

At first, it might not seem so bad, until you get to Dark Souls 3’s second bug, and arguably my biggest complaint regarding gameplay.

Absolutely all enemies attack faster than you (and have a longer range), no matter what weapon you are using. Do they have a big sword the size of a house? They can initiate an attack with that faster than you can stab with a dagger. His dagger? It will strike at you as your greatsword whips through the air in front of its face.

So if you’re the type of player who likes to trade blows with enemies… you’ll ALWAYS be stunned.

Your only option now is to dodge everything, all the time. And that’s fine. If that’s the playstyle you want to choose. People have been doing it this way since Demon Souls. But there was always a choice.

I like being a speedy ninja. But there are also times when I get tired of the crap in this game and want to put on some heavy armor, pull out a flaming ultra-great sword, and go to town!

In the past, you could choose heavy armor and a greatsword and trade blows with an enemy. Yes, it would hurt you, but you would hurt them more. A totally viable playstyle that doesn’t work anymore.

And good. This is how this game is supposedly designed. But the claim that Dark Souls has such a deep combat system? I don’t think that’s true with this installment.

For a game that relies heavily on combat… That’s a huge step back.

One more complaint:

The contract system. This isn’t a big deal if you’re not a trophy hunter. It is entirely possible to play the entire game and enjoy it without having to mess with most of the conventions.

But if you are looking for the Platinum trophy? Get ready to grind. A lot. Because while the multiplayer system has been improved over games of the past, there are still a couple of broken covenants that will require a LOT of sitting around waiting to be summoned or putting in some effort. Expect an average of 6 hours killing the same enemies over and over and over and over and over and over…

(I’m looking at you Blades of the Darkmoon…)

Okay, so what’s good?

Pretty much everything else.

The environments are beautiful and fun to explore. I can’t think of a single area where I went “UGH. This again.” (In the first Dark Souls, I found almost everything after Sen’s Fortress to be cheap and tedious.)

The weapons and armor, everything really, looks amazing.

There’s a lot of variation of enemies, and they make sense for the environments they’re in.

Multiplayer is always open to feedback. I think it’s pretty balanced if you play smart. Others will disagree. If you’re a whiner and don’t like being outnumbered when you invade, you’re not going to love the way Dark Souls 3 handles things.

Matchmaking has improved a lot. This time you can easily cooperate with your friends thanks to password matching.

Finally, one of my favorite improvements: for the first time, all armor sets are useful! You no longer need to update them. And they are ALL functional. Most weapons are also viable.

The developers have given you an incredible arsenal to choose from, and it all works. Even the poorest weapons are adequate to handle enemies in the game.

Bottom line: Is it fun? Yes. Is it frustrating? Something often. Is it worth buying it? Yes. Are there other games like this that are better? No.

Do I have resentment towards the developers? A bit!

If I had to rate it, I would start with a 10 for all the amazing things this game does right. Then I would take 3 points off for the broken fight and settle for a 7. Yes, this game has a lot going for it. But you’re going to have to put up with some unnecessary (in my opinion) frustrations to enjoy it.

Fix the Poise boys!