I have no trouble rapidly answering the following question: Is Dark Souls III better than Dark Souls? No. Ok, mechanically, there is a bit more polish and the speed of the game has progressed since the improvements brought on by Bloodborne to the formula. Generally, it has all moved to a point that has (in no short order) progressed. There is no better word for what Dark Souls III is, the natural progression of the series from where it started and where it would inevitably go.

In terms of story, this game has the most substantial alteration, though (like most Dark Souls games) it might be hard to figure that out straight away. You’ll need a deep-sea excavation team and a month off work to actually get close to uncovering the first little bit of the story. Which is to say, I hope you like replaying Dark Souls games, because you’ll need to a few times before anything actually sinks in. What is apparent is the whole Unkindled thing, which I believe is what my handlers call me when I’m not holding my juice bottle in my mouth and a device we in the 90s called Star Trek tech in my hands. This is completely different from being Undead because someone had to use the Find and Replace tool a lot.

Ok, there is actually one other bit that is different from the previous games, you use embers instead of humanity. I wonder if FromSoft used two people for the Find and Replace work? It doesn’t matter because all-in-all, you still do the whole die and restart from a bonfire bit. Usually, there are new teeth marks in that lovely PS4 controller your mother bought after you snapped the last one. Of course, the game is clanging saucepans and shouting like some dusty old men in the UK on the 12th of July, telling you that stakes are so much higher than before. Now you are climbing the castle, not heading down it.

That leads beautifully into another thing we’re doing, re-treading old ground by making a home base in Firelink Shrine, again. That is Dark Souls III in a nutshell, walking the same old ground and asking, “what have we found?” Oh look, it is Siegward of Catarina, colloquially known as, The Onion Knight. It is almost as if we’re returning to the classics to make ourselves feel happy before rolling over and going to sleep one last time. At least that seems to be it, the last whimper of Dark Souls as new things are set to take over the FromSoft cult, I mean, fan-base.

Of course, the question should be answered, why review Dark Souls (1) and III, but not II? I don’t like the second all that much, as I think it broke the formula of the game in large parts if you are a bit crap at it. Dark Souls III returns two things that are a significant part of what makes a Dark Souls game authentic: Twisted atrocities not seen since H. R. Giger was alive, and things respawning. I’ll say this until I am blue in the face, but I find the grind-y nature of MMOs, and more recently games featuring loot box-based progression, to be endlessly infuriating. However, I think if you are willing to open Grindr on the high walls of Lothric, you can level-up quite easily and it becomes almost a roundabout way of accessibility.

Dark Souls II never allowed for that, as after you’ve killed something (or it committed seppuku) 10-times, it was withdrawn forever in that save. I know, tell the cultists of FromSoft you can make the game more difficult by sacrificing a way to level up and they start frothing at the mouth. However, despite my best efforts to appreciate a world that hates me oh so much, that has never been an exciting prospect to me. If I know I am having difficulties with something, I want to know I can grind a little bit and use those souls for levels or to improve weapons. I know, I must sound mentally ill to these people.

No, we’re back to de rigueur for the Dark Souls series with the first boss straight away. Sure, he starts out as a bloke with a big stabbing stick and some metal protecting his squidgy bits, but soon enough, Venom creeps its way out of him and becomes the tail for which you’ll be spread across the Cemetery of Ash. Not that everyone in this world is now taking from the kind of crap Spider-Man spin-offs that like to terrorize H. P. Lovecraft’s nightmares (which didn’t take much). Though while Curse-Rotted Greatwood is different, Yhorm the Giant is indeed quite large, and the Nameless King could be murdered in the most brutal way and I wouldn’t feel a flicker of emotion, It just isn’t Dark Souls (I).

It is Dark Souls, don’t get me wrong there: It is very horrific, quite purposefully difficult, and generally oppressive. However, there is something possibly indescribable, about Dark Souls (I) that is special. Sure, it is not the first, and it has not only spawned indie pretenders to the crown but very quickly drew in the triple-A market too. That is a sentence, which in itself, tells you that while this may be the last Dark Souls (thus far), it wouldn’t be the last Souls-like.

Maybe you can chop up some of those saying the first Dark Souls was better to nostalgia, that first strike at a mass “oh, that’s the game we’re playing now.” However, I don’t think that really works for me. I first played Dark Souls (I) in 2018, and by the end of 2019, I’d played through the third, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. If it were sentimentality in some form, it would surely reach over all the games, right? I played them in such a short period of time, it is hard to build that sense of nostalgia for one over the other. Moreover, I hated Dark Souls (I) when I first played it, and it wasn’t until I’d played Hollow Knight that I finally got it. It being the bug for what Dark Souls as a series, as a sub-genre of a sub-genre, happens to be.

So the question remains. Why do I think Dark Souls III is not better than its progenitor if it has improved the speed and fluidity of combat, heightened the stakes of the story even if it is a little, and generally improved mechanically? A game, no matter how hard it might be to tell, is not monolithic in terms of what makes it either good or bad. Yes, there is a very impressive story to Dark Souls (I), and if you so please you can entirely ignore it, though you can’t necessarily do the opposite when reversing their roles with gameplay. Dark Souls, despite not being monotonal in terms of what it can deliver, does require combat to get to the story (when playing; ignore YouTube).

Despite its mechanical developments over time from Dark Souls (I), there isn’t the total package. Say what you will about the Gaping Dragon being one of the easiest bosses in the game (or franchise), it is a boss I’ll never forget. Dark Souls (I), while flawed in minor ways if you can play it and in major ways for those that may require nonexistent accessibility features, is a game made of its parts. You can enjoy the first Dark Souls for what it is without playing Demon’s Souls, but to enjoy Dark Souls III you are expected to also have enjoyed games not even within its own series. Dark Souls III, call it a positive if you must, is a game specifically for the fans of FromSoft games and nothing more.

None of that is to say Dark Souls III is a bad game, but much like Metal Gear Solid fans with MGS 4, I have to say I like Dark Souls III simply because I am a fan. As I said just a short while ago, it is still Dark Souls, but the bits it adds make it something that only fans can/will appreciate. Of course, the retort would be that it is a series, so of course, jumping in at the third isn’t going to make sense to someone new. Well, is that true? What little ties the games together is the mechanics, the Age of Light and the age of having to put a new bulb in the socket. Yet, in that list is mechanics from other games and a mountain of references stacked a mile high to a better game.

Ultimately, yes, I think Dark Souls III: The Fire Fades is better mechanically. However, when you are looking for something special, the first Dark Souls is unrivaled. If anything gets close, I think it would have to be Bloodborne, but even Dark Souls III falls behind Gothic London where you’ll be stabbed for looking the wrong way. I do have a great affinity for both Dark Souls (I) and III, but equally? No. One set the benchmark for which everyone seems to be trying to hit now, while the other jumps head-first between the former’s cheeks for a second helping.

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Dark Souls III: The Fire Fades

$24.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Refinement of mechanics.
• Beautifully (disturbing) designed world.

Cons

• Very little to define itself.
• Lengthy load times between bonfires.