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#20 TIE. Dark Souls III (2016)
Total Points: 13
List Appearances: 6
First Place Votes: 0
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Writeup provided by tazzyboyishere
I came into the Souls fandom a bit late. I didn't start playing them until early 2015, so I missed the initial boat on the first three. Similarly, I didnt have a PS4 until around Christmas of that same year, so I was ever so slightly late to Bloodborne. But after plenty of plays and replays, I was officially locked into the franchise, and, for the first time, I was ready to experience a new release with the rest of the country. The results were everything I had hoped for and more. Its easy to look at Dark Souls III and see where it falters in relation to its siblings. In the same way Dark Souls II did its own thing for better or worse, Dark Souls III gleefully acknowledges itself as a sequel for better or worse. But that experience of playing it for the first time, discovering the ins and outs of the world design, combat, and lore was truly mesmerizing.

The core premise follows the same general trend as the past games. Four gatekeepers of sorts hold the key to you taking out some entity well past their prime in order to bring about change to the world, either by prolonging the status quo or by destroying what has been to make way for something new. This is an oversimplification of the narratives, but each game follows this trend while introducing new ways of relaying the concepts. While each game takes place in a lonely, broken kingdom, it is more evident than ever you are in the end times this time around. Each area feels grim, with few signs of life to grasp onto. Whereas previous games had hub areas like Majula or the Firelink Shrine, both of which felt like remnants of a world worth saving, DS3s hub is a shrine lost to time, so close to the heart of the land, yet forgotten in the midst of its slow death. Demonkind, a race so critical within the history of this world, has all but withered away, with only small remnants of their force wandering about, weaker than ever. Once grand civilizations like the city of Irithyll are haunted by shades and infested with disturbing abominations of the Deep, a concept I could try to explain, but I dont have ten hours to spare. So many concepts explored within this game are depressing as hell, but it manages to be so fascinating through all of it.

The main claim to fame these games have is their memorable boss fights. While Ive always cared more about world and individual level design, and those parts of the game are incredible, the boss fights are equally impressive. It is getting rarer and rarer for me to deal with the type of difficulty these types of games advertise, and I fully expect, had I played this game for the first time today, I would have been exhausted by what I faced, but holy hell, pretty much all of these are bangers. You have a few weak gimmick bosses like the Greatwood or the Deacons, but otherwise, every fight is highly memorable, and most are incredibly fun to learn. The prior games have quite a few terrible boss fights (Dragon God, Moonlight Butterfly, Bed of Chaos, Ancient Dragon, Gank Squad, Royal Rat Authority, these are all just ones I thought of off the top of my head). But DS3? There really arent any, and most of them are so fucking good. Like, I could even get into games like Bloodborne and Elden Ring and name off a few boss fights I think suck ass, but I cant really do that with DS3.

Much of this is owed to the highly improved control and flow. Both DS 1 and 2 are pretty tough to go back to, but DS3 brings a lot of the smoothness felt from Bloodbornes movement into the more methodical pace of Dark Souls. The result is mildly controversial depending on who you talk to, but the jank you feel when going back to one of the earlier games simply isnt there with 3. It allowed them to get a lot more creative with encounter design, with tons of really cool battles and setpieces that make the adventure feel sufficiently epic. While it does have the side effect of making this the easiest game in the series, at least to me, the game is plenty challenging regardless, so I dont personally see it as a fault, especially given how hard its firing on all cylinders.

Unfortunately, a lot of my praise gets lost in the first DLC, Ashes of Ariandel, a dull, meandering effort to recapture magic from two incredible snow levels From had already made for us, ending with an overdesigned boss that feels ripped straight out of Elden Ring. I, uh, dont wanna talk about that. BUT, I want to make my opinion there known simply so I can ensure everyone who may be reading this, and hasnt played the game, that The Ringed City offers one of the greatest conclusions to a franchise you could ever see. So rarely do endings manage to fully connect all the themes of a story together in a powerful way, but holy shit, they fucking did it. The ending to Dark Souls III is the encapsulation of three dense, medium-defining legacies, and it really is a magical experience. Like, my eyes are welling up just thinking about how great it is. Any ending that can make me look at my favorite franchise and think, I hope they dont make another one of these is fucking magical.