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GAME. SET. MATCH.

Finished Dark Souls 3 this evening.

Halflight was pretty easy once you learn not to summon help and to kill those annoying Guardian Painting helpers ASAP. After that, I took out that Filianore Knight and got one of the craziest weapons in the game. Then it came down to Gael. Honestly, he was way easier than I was expecting. Especially once I learn he was weak to poison which made this fight way more manageable as I was able to get to the later phases faster. With that said, it was a pretty epic battle. After that, all I had was the Lord of Cinder.

Cinder was obviously not much of a challenge after doing the DLC. Though his powered up second phase was interesting and a nice sendoff for the series as a whole. I obtained the Ursurp the Fire Ending, because I pretty much always choose to end the Age of Fire in all of the Dark Souls games cause I honestly feel Gwyn is a dick.

My MVP weapon was actually my starting Longsword which I eventually infused into a Refined Longsword. The damage was admirable, the ability to buff it was a lifesaver, and it is incredibly combo friendly and can break poise better than you think it would. Like seriously, anytime I tried to use a new more fancy weapon I quickly dropped it in favor of this beast of a weapon. I never bothered with magic outside of dabbling in a few pyomancies but even that was more for options than because I built my character towards it.

My MVP Ring was the Carthus Milkring which was basically Bloodborne's Hunter's Bone without the Silver Bullet cost making it even better. Since I tend to play light speedier builds, any item that can increase my dodge roll invincibility frames is a godsend.

Favorite Armor was a toss up between the Abyss Watcher armor and the Ringed Knight Armor. Fashion souls indeed.

My overall assessment of the game is a bit mixed. From a Lore standpoint, this is my favorite entry of the Dark Souls series. The setting and bosses were interesting and the DLC didn't disappoint. I didn't mind the game taking some cues from Bloodborne, ythe faster combat was welcomed and I felt it translated into more exciting boss battles. The locations were pretty snazzy as well though I still feel like a few locations felt more like Bloodborne areas that got cut such as Irythill of the Boreal Valley and the Carthus Catacombs definitely felt like an unused but better designed Chalice Dungeon. I think this game has my favorite set of NPC s as well even if the witch chick kind of feels more like a Demon's Souls Easter egg instead of an actual person. The rest of the NPCS had interesting stories and I honestly was really saddened when Greirat died, I'm still freaking upset about that cause I loved that dude. While I stuck to my starting weapon for most of the game, the weapons selection was actually quite nice and the weapon art mechanic was quite nice. As per usual with FROM Software and this franchise, the DLC was quite excellent.

My biggest gripe with the game? Probably the fact it is one of the easiest entries in the series yet. While I clocked in quite a bit of time, I feel a good chunk of that was just do to the massive amount of secrets and content this game contains as opposed to DS1 where a third of my time was me hitting a brick wall with a boss or a particular area. I probably had more issues with Red Phantoms and certain enemy types than I did with overall areas and boss battles and I was astounded how many bosses I took down on a first try. I'm hardly a Souls expert here either, I've only played each entry once except Demon's Souls. I'm sure for someone who has never played the series this entry would be quite challenging but honestly I think only the Dancer and Midir were able to kill me so much I lost count. Also, Farron Woods is easily the nicest and most pleasant swamp level FROM Software has ever made. I almost feel like it was an apology for the BS of previous games. Granted this isn't a deal breaker but it is a bit sad that several bosses are more memorable for me due to the spectacle than because of the challenge. With that said, I actually kind of like the game a little better than Dark Souls 1 simply due to the lore.

So let's do the stat rundown:

  • Favorite Boss: (Main Game) Abyss Watchers and Aldritch (DLC) Sister Friede and Gael
  • Most Difficult Boss: (MG) Dancer of the Boreal Valley and Nameless King (DLC) Darkeater Midir and Sister Friede
  • Easiest Boss: Deacons of the Deep or Halflight.
  • Easy Boss I embarrassingly died to more than I should have: Halflight and the Rotten Greatwood Tree.
  • Super Hard Boss I found pretty easy: Gael and Sulyvan
  • NPC Invader who can go Smurf themselves: Tsorig and Hodrick
  • Favorite Covenant: N/A
  • Favorite NPC: Greirat, Gael, and Anri
  • Favorite location: Lothric Castle, Grand Archives, Catacombs of Carthus, Ringed City, Painted World of Ariandel, and the Archdragon Keep
  • Favorite Easter Egg/Reference: Storm Ruler and revisiting Anor Londo, I also still love the Farram Armor set.
  • Least favorite Zones: Smouldering Lake and Profaned Capital.
  • Favorite Lord of Cinder: I honestly liked all of them.
  • Thing I need to work on for my next playthrough: Parry skills.


I'll probably think of more as time goes on, but I may take a break from the series for a bit, unless the call to Bloodborne gets the better of me...