Played for about 5 hours. Not too crazy about the level design right now because it seems very linear, but the quality-of-life changes are fucking great (it no longer takes a decade for Estus flasks to restore HP :lawd).
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Also Curse-Rotted Greatwood is one of the most visually impressive bosses I've seen in a Souls game.
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Pontiff Sulyvahn
Motherfucker took me nearly 2 hours to kill.
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4-3
Looking up videos of how to fight bosses is distinguished mentally-challenged since every video is like [HOW TO BEAT REALLY HARD BOSS] - video then shows player naked on NG+++++++++ casually steamrolling the boss. Like, really bitch? Fuck out of here.
I know right.
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GITGUD LOL
https://imgur.com/gallery/1RziC
(https://i.imgur.com/sA3VsOO.gif)
BONUS EDIT: spoiler (click to show/hide)
(https://i.imgur.com/WkqniE2.jpg)
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(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/790791749957824756/A7471B189631B8879CEA6CA4798535900CBCA619/)
Once you REALLY have the hang of him, you can do it in your sleep outside some dumb RNG since you just need to hang in front of his head ALL THE TIME so you can lure out his 3-5 different attacks and then dodge them all and hit him a couple of times. But his HP is so big and the range of his attacks and sometimes randomness and that he kills you in 3 hits is annoying. He's basically Ancient Dragon and Slumbering Poison Dragon in DS2 DLC1 all over again. Eh.
So then I'm like, I beat crazy ass Friede with 3 lifebars, Demon Prince with 2 enemies/3 life bars, Gael the motherfucking DMCxBB king, and Darkeater Midir. Time to go fight the final main story boss, this is gonna be a joke compared to all that stuff.
...fucking Lord of Cinder jesus bullshit fuck fuck fuck. Another PvP-like fight except it's PvP against a god-mode all the moves, super speed, huge range guy. Really annoying with my slow ass character, which btw to beat Midir I basically went near-naked to get under 70% and stuck with that for Cinder cause in the end roll >>> everything. Still the problem is my huge sword is slow to swing so from hitting the attack button until the attack hits takes a while which constantly fucks me in DS3 because of how fast these PvP bosses move. After dying A LOT and barely making it to lifebar 2 a couple of times, I dodged his dumbass lightning strikes and countered over and over and killed him. I was expecting a lifebar 3 since I heard he becomes Gwyn and I thought there'd be some visual change to turn into Gwyn, so I was pretty annoyed I kept dying on stage 1&2, but then he just died like nothing and I guess the 2nd lifebar of him getting some lightning moves is the Gwyn phase? Couldn't really tell.
So then there's like a 5 second ending and that's it? Also the DLCs don't have endings? Like after Painted World Friede fight nothing happened besides some new dialogue with the painter lady? Then after DLC2 and Gael you take the blood back to the painter lady and you get a new line of dialogue or two and that's it? Like for being the final Dark Souls game and all the epic YOU HAVE TO LINK THE FIRES business, there doesn't seem to be much of an ending to the game?
Idk, I got the Usurp the Fire ending, so I'll go and watch the other ones now.
Overall DS3 was a fun game that was hard to put down. There was good exploration, some cool boss fights, but eh, I think it's got just as much bullshit as DS2 and a way worse story. I felt like DS1 & 2 and even BB were these elaborate tales of fully standalone worlds and their stories, here it feels like everything is a mishmash of these different mini-worlds and there's some good parts but it feels like it's trying too hard to be a conclusion to the series vs an interesting original story. I read a review that said a lot of DS3 feels like a rehash of previous souls games, and that after doing hundreds of boss fights they're running out of ideas. I kinda agree, I felt by the end that a lot of the bosses were just bosses I fought before in Souls. I liked some of the more original fights like Wolnir Grim Reaper King.
Also the game feels like it took a bunch from Bloodborne, but it doesn't feel BB at all imo. The enemies move much faster and there's more PvP type stuff, but I don't feel like your character has the agility or moveset of BB to match up with that, so it's a bit bullshit. One thing I like that they took from BB was more talking dialogue bosses, like the Consumed King or Friede Battle. I think it adds a lot.
The areas overall were not that memorable for me. Ithyril Valley was probably the standout since its icy illusion look was very cool, especially coming out of the catacombs.
Two things I was kinda hoping for, but didn't happen were 1) When the first boss had BEAST MODE at his halfway point, I thought that was gonna be the gimmick for DS3, to be like BB where bosses turn from PvP type fights into giant monster fights, but that never happened and was just the two Champion fights and 2) Considering how this is the pulling everything together finale, I was really hoping for more of the Fampt/Kathe serpents from DS1 since they were kind of the ones pulling the strings behind the entire thing. But you just get a name drop from Yuria and some statues in DLC2. Would've been cool if they were more involved and maybe a boss fight against a serpent would've been interesting.
Eh, well I'll go read the lore over the next few days and watch the other endings. Maybe it'll increase my opinion, but right now I feel like BB=DS1>DS2>DeSoul>DS3.
*edit* watched the rest of the endings. Man these endings are terrible. DS3 definitely is a huge step back storywise from all the other Souls games. That really sucks :|