If the first Dark Souls depicted a world gracefully drifting towards the apocalypse, Dark Souls 3

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Dark Souls 3 does suffer from occasional framerate dips and a few underwhelming boss fights, but beyond that, its epic scale, aggressive obstacles, and rich development of existing lore make it the grandest and fiercest Dark Souls adventure yet.

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The Kingdom of Lothric and the lands that lie beyond contain some of the most visually striking places developer From Software has ever crafted. Even though many of its locations do recycle ideas from familiar locales (like the Catacombs and yet another poison swamp), they're distinguished well enough to feel distinct from their past game parallels. There was never a moment when I didn’t feel captivated by their strong sense of place and the amount of gorgeous detail put into each environment. I stared out in awe atop the crumbling medieval stronghold of the High Wall, taking in the view of its surrounding valleys and snow-capped mountains, while all around me the fort’s frenzied denizens turned to stone and wood mid-prayer. I trudged through the poison swamps of the Road of Sacrifices while battling seething, cross-bearing beasts, braved Irithyll’s chilling, Tower of Latria-like dungeon, and got lost in a multi-story maze of curse-ridden bookshelves in the Grand Archives.

“ Dark Souls 3’s world does a lot to reward an inquisitive and thorough nature.

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Exploration of the aforementioned places is the cornerstone of this series, and Dark Souls 3’s world does a lot to reward an inquisitive and thorough nature. You could spend hours in a single area, diligently investigating every dark corner or side road, and be consistently rewarded with some interesting story revelation, new gear, mini bosses, and even entire secret areas. Illusory walls make a triumphant return, driving me to compulsively slash away at suspicious-looking dents or bricks in search of precious equipment. I got a pretty high rate of return on doing that, too, from the earliest levels to the very late game. Crystal lizards also must have had a breeding season, because there are a ton of them slithering around, ripe for the slaying and with lots of twinkling titanite for leveling up special weapons.

“ A mostly triumphant return to the kind of large-scale, world-focused journey of Dark Souls 1.

Your progress is marked by massive landmarks, which lend the world a cohesive quality. In several early levels, I could maintain sight of the High Wall from which I’d originally come; while trying to extinguish a series of beacons as part of the entry process for a boss, I scaled a huge ladder through the thick canopy of trees blocking my view and could see clearly where I was in relation to the first level. I recalled seeing nearly this exact place too, from another spot on the High Wall.

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This solid sense of space and geography elevates Dark Souls 3’s level design beyond the relatively weak blueprint of Dark Souls 2, making a mostly triumphant return to the kind of large-scale, world-focused journey of Dark Souls 1. Perhaps the only things sadly missing from Dark Souls 3’s environments are the kind of interesting platforming challenges present in places like Dark Souls 1’s Sen’s Fortress or Crystal Cave.

Kindling Friendships

There are plenty of interesting characters to meet throughout Dark Souls 3, some new and some returning. The voice acting is great as always and characters have a ton of dialogue to exhaust, offering up plenty of new emotes to perform, dropping useful hints about the world and your role in it, and generally cementing themselves as the next in a line of odd, yet lovable Souls personalities. Like in past games, NPC questlines remain mysteries to be solved over the long term of your adventure, so in my first 35-hour playthrough they weren’t all completed. I let a couple characters die because of my failure to encounter them in certain areas or meet certain circumstances, but in keeping with true Dark Souls fashion, even death has its rewards: those conclusions still had something interesting to offer in the way of tragic closure, sometimes tied to other plot details in startling ways, or neat new items.

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I look forward to following these questlines more closely in future playthroughs, but I worry that a few bugs I ran into in my first one might impede that. Early on, one particularly sneaky character appeared to ask me for forgiveness for a past misdeed, but it was my first time meeting him in Dark Souls 3. I later found out that he was supposed to show up at a certain spot much earlier, but he must’ve missed his cue. Another character who showed up after I’d spoken to a covenant leader swore the two of us were enemies from then on, even though I had never met her prior to that. I wasn’t even part of the covenant – even though joining any one of Dark Souls 3’s eight covenants is now as convenient as snapping a badge in place in your inventory, I hadn’t done that here. But I suppose for this disgruntled NPC, just talking to the leader is good enough.

The Art of the Kill

The brutality of Dark Souls 3’s worlds and the beasts that roam there are matched only by its vicious new moves called weapon arts, which add variety and style to an already strong combat system: one moment I’m crushing enemies with the devastating weight of my greatsword, the next I’m turning the giant hunk of curved steel into a graceful propeller of destruction.

“ Dark Souls 3’s weapons are aggressive and multipurpose.

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Besides resting at a bonfire, the primary way of recovering FP is Ashen Estus. You can easily allot a number of uses for these blue flasks by speaking with the blacksmith in the hub world. If you have a maximum of 10 flasks (increased by giving Estus Shards found in the world to the blacksmith), then you can designate five for healing Estus and five for Ashen Estus, a decision which can be changed anytime you want. Having a way to recharge FP on the go means more freedom to use spells and pyromancies, which means more opportunity to play dependently on magic – great news for spellcasters.

Weird and Wonderful Weapons

Some of the most awesome-looking weapon arts, and one of the most impressive strides in Dark Souls 3’s combat in general, come out of its dual-wielded weapon sets. A clean system for dual-wielding most combinations of weapons and an awesome arsenal designed specifically for it means it’s now actually viable to have a dual-wielding build in Dark Souls. The risk of not having a shield has always been one part of what’s so enticing about dual-wielding, and some of Dark Souls 3’s weapons are just aggressive and multipurpose enough to make you not even miss it.

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One greatsword and dagger combo in particular lets you perform several wide, sweeping slashes, driving groups of enemies back before delivering a final, mid-air blow. You can also quickly lock onto new enemies mid-chain, prioritizing dangerous or vulnerable individuals in a mob to maximize the effect of your attacks. I unleashed this attack to deal with situations where a group of smaller enemies surrounded a larger and more dangerous leader, slashing away at the minions before executing the last heavy blow on the main enemy in the middle.

“ Dark Souls 3’s roster of relentless horrors hit harder and sometimes faster than ever.

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Boss weapons are extremely easy to craft, too – a character in the hub world trades them for souls (boss soul included) after being given an item you receive relatively early on. One boss soul can yield multiple weapons and even spells or rings, so collecting them all encourages multiple playthroughs. It also makes the choice of what to actually craft a little harder and even nerve-wracking: after creating a silly sounding pyromancy from a Stray Demon soul, I was saddened to learn I’d somehow skipped over Havel’s Ring, which once again increases your equip load – vital for heavy armor and weapon users who want to maintain that quick roll. Let my mistake be your warning: choose your boss gear wisely! (And for the love of Havel, get that guy’s ring.)

“ The titanite used to upgrade weapons is extremely plentiful in Dark Souls 3.

On top of the usual strategies – hiding behind a shield, aggroing one enemy at a time with the now-pleasingly quick Short Bow, going in for the backstab to cut a battle short – I also spent more time observing the environment and making sure I knew my exits. In more than one instance, a relentless line of shield-bashing, weapon art-using knights had me making a beeline straight for the next bonfire before attempting to deal with them. I also kept several types of weapons reinforced for dealing with all kinds of situations. The titanite used to upgrade weapons is extremely plentiful in Dark Souls 3, so no farming is necessary to keep those handy options ready.

Lords of Cinder

Dark Souls 3 experiments a lot more with the boss-battle structure, yielding mixed results. For example, most boss fights have two phases, in much the same way Bloodborne does, which means new movesets and sometimes a brand-new health bar can emerge halfway through a battle to keep the tension mounting and prevent you from getting lazy with your tactics.

“ Most of the bosses are a fun challenge.

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It isn’t like Dark Souls 3 has a shortage of awesome boss designs, though – ranging from majestic to frightful, some even made me gasp in shock over the lore implications of their look, or music, or circumstances, and most did have an exciting and tough battle to match. Those framerate dips made an unwelcome return during some of these fights, however, rendering all the excitement occasionally hard to look at.

But most of the bosses are a fun challenge for good reasons, and some of those battles made me feel outmatched enough that I was compelled to use another of Dark Souls 3’s new mechanics. Embers, the Dark Souls 3 equivalent of Dark Souls 1’s Humanity, elevate you from Unkindled to Kindled form, which gives you access to online features and adds a cool, burning effect to your armor. Similar to Demon’s Souls’ Body/Soul Form system, being Kindled also grants a boost in HP that is lost on death, but the extra HP is more of a reward for being Kindled (which is automatic when you defeat a boss) than a penalty for being Unkindled. The HP boost was nice insurance to have during a particularly tough boss, but not necessary for all of them.

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The real value of Embers is their requirement to use online features. I defeated all the bosses solo on my first playthrough, but a few test runs with co-op and password matchmaking proved that jumping into fights with friends is quick, easy, and fun, so you’ll want to have those Embers ready for multiplayer. I never ran out of Embers during my playthrough and even if I did, a few enemies drop them and some merchants at the hub sell a limited number.