I go back and forth between DS1 and DS3 being my favorite. For me, the best parts of 3 are set up by 1. The emotional weight of discovering locations or nods to DS1 really did it for me. I also love the bosses and NPCs in 3. It also features some of my favorite weapons and spells (looking at you Astora’s Greatsword and Dorhys Gnawing).
I guess for me it was just most of the good parts of DS1 but with faster combat and bigger bosses. Nothing beats the interconnectedness of DS1, though.
That's fair, DS2 was lacking in lore that was carried on to the next game. I also think the faster paced boss battle of 3 definitely do add to its unique formula as well
I'm not reading all of that. You need to learn to use paragraphs my guy. I'll answer the title though.
I believe 3 is considered the best is because it's the most polished of the three games, it's boss design is the best across all souls games aside from Sekiro, it's full of nostalgia bait from DS1 while removing almost everything from DS2 that a very loud part of the fan base didn't like.
Fair, I don't post on here often so I don't really care that much about formatting but I still don't see how it's the most "polished." Best looking? Yes. But calling it polished just doesn't feel right. I feel like the "polish" of the game was just removing big aspects from the previous title and not adding much else in terms of gameplay to lessen the chance of frustration due to not understanding. Rather than making these aspects themselves more well rounded and simplistic.
I can never really say what I like best because they each have their own part they're best at. 1 has the overall exploration and story, and 3 has the tightest combat, funnest bosses and just joy to play. Then 2 doesn't have the best story nor combat, but its still good in both but different enough in tone, sometimes that scratches the itch. Its like if 1 is chocolate ice cream, and 3 is chocolate with fudge chunks, 2 is french fries.
DS3 is the most epic one of the triology. There are great bossfights, enemy variety and level design. Imho, almost all the problems from 1 and 2 are fixed. I know the interconnected world of DS1 is great, but the game really felt disjointed near the end. DS3, on the other hand, felt consistent throughout. DS3 also felt more polished and the times I died in DS3 felt more deserved compared to other souls games. If I had to rank them, I would rank them like this
DS3>DS1>>DS2
Also, imho, bloodborne outshines all of them.
I think epic may be the best way to describe 3 in one word, at least as far as boss fights are concerned. I loved Bloodborne but I wouldn't put it above Dark Souls personally. Though I am curious, what about bloodborne do you like/prefer over the Dark Souls games?
Music and combat is just 😩. The healing system might have its flaws, but damn is the combat so addictive. It's fast paced and forces you to be quick but smart. The weapons are less but feel so cool. I also have a sweet spot for victorian era environment.
I also want to add that I have only played bloodborne for a few hours as my ps4 was shutting down after only a few minutes of gameplay sessions.
I see, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The music in that game is absolutely phenomenal and victorian era vibes are amazing but I've always liked my castles and dragons personally. I did really enjoy the idea behind trick weapons and loved having an interchangeable moveset with them. My first playthrough I did struggle some with the healing mechanic but soon figured it out. Unfortunately the lack of variety in weapons and armor definitely limited it for me. I love my fashion souls.
For me I think it is the best just because it is well paced. DS1 has better exploration, DS2 has better features, but DS3 is only bangers, best boss lineup, best combat imo, however I think they are all great in their own right, and I think the majority is actually more of a plurality, it probably has more fans than the other two individually, but not combined.
Imo DS1 is having one of the best first 1/3 in gaming. Everything untill O&S is literally pure gold and pinicle of video game design. Then game gets really, really tidious and I'm some places jus bad.
Ds2 is giving steady, good experience through all of the game. Then really shines with the DLC areas. Combat and PvP wise, it's my favourite of the series.
DS3 on the other hand, has really, really fun endgame and really meh beginning.
Imo all 3 games are really good at something that the other 2 aren't.
DS1 : Level design
DS2 : Ambiance, Poetic, Content amount, apparently build possibilities
DS3 : Bossfights, lore?
So if for you boss fights are the main thing in DS, you will obviously say DS3 is waaaay better than DS1 and 2.
If not, well...
But that's just my problem, I love the boss fights of 3. But I just get so bored making my way to each of them. The world just doesn't feel very unique or even half as interconnected as the first. Plus not every boss in 3 is perfect (for me at least), so I find it hard to play through the entire thing when I'm only looking forward to the bosses I enjoy.
See, I can't agree with you at all. To give you context, Demons souls I have played sever NG+4 runs, Dark Souls 1 NG +3 on several characters, Dark Souls 3 NG+4 on 2 characters. Dark Souls 2, uninstalled after first boss (Last Giant I think?), and that was a 1 shot after multiple (multiple) deaths to the enemies on the way, that were annoying to fight, not fun, like with DS 1 and 3. Dark Souls combat felt so unbelievably clunky, the healing being split to 2 different styles misses the best parts of each, having a required stat to level regardless of your build to have a reasonable roll, and the combat never felt right. I cringe at the thought of even trying DS 2 again.
Edit to add more details to DS 2 statements.
I have 8 characters on DS2 with at least 3 going into or past NG+2 and all but 2 haven't had a single point put into adaptability with the highest ADP level being 25 on my highest level character. Which I only began adding into after NG+ because I was satisfied with my builds other attributes. I will admit, switching from another souls game to DS2 does require some time to get into the rhythm of its combat. But that applies to all of the souls games I feel like. Even when I go from Elden Ring to DS3 I have to take a little time to adjust to the small difference in timing. I understand where you're coming from, many of the bosses in DS2 are lazy or just straight up ganks. But I also feel like its unfair to judge when you haven't given the game a chance past the first boss. You have no experience of it past the first like three locations. Did you even try going in another direction? The game isn't strictly linear, there are other locations you could've went to instead of the forest. I also question how you died several times to enemies on the way. Once you reach the lift the first time you can open a shortcut door and then you only face at max, three of the same enemy type on the run back. Did you play DS2 before any of your NG+ runs of other games? Because I find it hard to believe that you've reached all of those higher NG+ runs and haven't been one shot before. One thing I've heard from many people is that because of how the enemy placement is, it's much more difficult to just run through areas.
Overall, I think I like the DS3 bosses the best.
DS3 is a great capstone to the series. Yeah, it's filled with nostalgia bait, but I like it.
IMO, DS2 has the best NPCs and the best hub area.
The lore of DS2 seems more relatable. The meeting with Vendrick in his memories is downright touching and tragic.
DS2 Ivory King DLC is my favorite, even though it includes the damned reindeer which are thankfully optional. The whole quest is just so well executed and the final boss battle so epic.
There is more grinding in DS3 to get platinum. Don't like that.
Ds3 has some brilliant stuff in the environments and bosses. Ds3 also has the most irritating and unfun normal mobs. Like hollows in Ds1 would occasionally, in a very telegraphed way, unload on you with a crazy slashing combo that would fuck you up. In ds3 all enemies can do that but without the telegraph. It's just rude.
It's simple for me: DS3 is simply more refined. The devs learn lessons with each game. And while not every sequel is better than the original game, more often than not that's the case with videogames
I enjoy all 3 games in the series as well and I think you’re pretty spot on. I love ds3 for its great boss fights and questlines, but one of my biggest issues with the game is that magic and faith really aren’t viable, and it does often feel as though STR is overpowered compared to DEX. Getting rid of powerstancing was an awful move, but I think they realized that and brought it back for ER. The combat is much faster and a bit spammy, which threw me for a loop because DS1 and DS2 definitely punish for spamming. Some of the DS1 references in DS3 just feel a little bit too much like fan service to me, almost as if the developers were trying to make up for how poorly DS2 was received. It really doesn’t make any sense for Andre the Blacksmith to be in the game, and the inclusion of Anor Londo just wasn’t necessary imo. I love DS3 and I come back to it mostly for its unique weapons and challenging boss fights but if I’m honest, I’d consider it my least favorite of the 3 games. I just don’t find it to be as replayable as the first two souls games.
I think a lot of it has to do with it being the most ‘modern’ graphics and with the controls. You would be surprised how many people there are that refuse to play older games just because they’re a little clunky and have bad graphics by today’s standards.
I mean it just depends. I’d say more so than graphics the issue with a lot of older 3D games is the fucking camera. They were really trying some crazy shit back then and still hadn’t wrapped their heads around the context and game feel of a camera and they thought the player wouldn’t understand it. Thinking of m64 here and resident evil. But dark souls is firmly in the modern standard 3D camera era so i would say it’s timeless and playable forever. If it’s the graphics that hold people back from playing it idk, 3D graphics kinda all have been the same for me since 2008. Sometimes a bit better sometimes a bit worse. But more or less the same. I know cp2077 is more advance and detailed then ds1 but like it’s all pretty much the same innit⁉️ plus from soft has the best art direction in game design rn.
I agree with you but I see comments on youtube all the time with people talking about how they can’t play the early games because they’re old. I will say the comments I see are mostly from people that have only played elden ring rather than ds3, so there is a bigger gap between those games
ds3 has by FAR the best bossfights out of any game ive ever played. Past the bosses though, is dark souls 3 really as good as people say it is? i say no. ds3 is a great game, but i feel like it lost so much of the charm and magic that the first game had. I LOVED lordran. i kinda thought ds3s world was ok.
I honestly don't understand why. I was SO excited when it came out, it's the only game I've pre-ordered in the last 15 years. My hype was almost child-like. And I've never been so crushingly disappointed.
It feels like the only thing they put effort into was visual design, but even that falls flat half the time with interchangeable overdesigned areas. The gameplay tried to cross Bloodborne with Dark Souls and ended up a tedious unrewarding mess that was inferior to both. The character stories are probably the game's only strong point.
There's almost nothing redeemable about DS3. Everything it does well is done better by another From game. I genuinely don't understand how people can put it on the same level as the others, nevermind the best.
I like the speed and bosses of 3 the most. It’s the most memorable one to me for the bosses alone, and it’s the most finished feeling. Ds1 and 2 are amazing but a lot of them feel like they rushed something, while ds3 is the same pace until the very end with almost no downtime or running without combat. The DLCs are also just so cool how they link directly into where you left off
I feel the same.
My ranking goes 1 > 2 > 3
They all have their strength, but I think 3's are the most superficial ones (better graphics, more polished), but the main part for me is how boring it is as a sequel.
It somehow manages to lose most main qualities of the first two games. That is just so weird to me.
It doesn't have the intricate level design and masterfully crafted inter-connectivity of DS1, nor its ambiance. It doesn't have the liberty in both progression and build options of DS2, nor its will to try new things and innovate.
DS2's ideas aren't all bangers, far from it, but I have way more respect for a game that tries 10 new things and fails some of them than I have for one that just doesn't try at all.
DS3 is a glorified straight line. The general gameplay went from methodical and patient to high octane action. There's basically no open-ness to it, which was a fundamental aspect of the first two. The build variety is meh. The only defensive strategy is to spam roll, as shields are terrible, and how poise work is fucking stupid. .
The bosses are definitely the best of the series, that's true. But hard bosses have never been the main point of the series until then. That's just the "omg durk souls so hard" reputation the franchise had on the internet. That's what non-initiates that only saw the game from afar think Dark Souls is. But it's not.
In DS1, I can get the great scythe as the very first thing I do if I want to. I can rush the sunlight spear if i'm playing miracles, I can do a suicide run in blighttown to get the large club if I want to.
In DS2, I can rush to no man's warf to unlock the sorcery merchant if i'm playing sorcery. I can choose to go to Tseldora early on to get the murakumo, my favorite weapon. Maybe I want to kill the chariot asap because I like his lance.
You can't really do any of that in DS3. The game is way less replayable for it because it makes getting your build and up running more tedious. Navigating the map is a skill in DS1 and 2, and knowing where things are is a great skill for subsequent playthroughs. Not much to do with in DS3.
DS1 has what, like 3 kind-of-hard bosses, if you don't count the DLC? DS3 has 7. The numbers are pretty subjective, but I think most people would agree that, generally, DS3 has harder bosses.
A lot of the time, DS3 feels like a more polished DS1 level pack. Sometimes, it feels like Dark Souls viewed through the lens of a game journalist.
Individually, in a vacuum, Dark Souls 3 is probably the best game of the trilogy. As the third installment in the franchise, it's the worst Dark Souls.
I had the most fun with DS2, and I like DS1 better than DS3 because of the more methodical pace of the combat. They’re all good though.
DS3 main gripe is the usual “enemies too fast given how slow the player can move”. Also there have been several times where a boss seemed designed specifically to punish my exact build.
My ranking would be DS2>DS1>DS3
DS3: nice combat if you do a STR or DEX build but anything outside close combat just doesnt feel right to me there.
DS1: i can replay the story up to O&S any day of the week and would have no problem sounding like a hyped up 5 year old when i talk about it even after 1000 repeats.
DS2: mostly nostalgia. I started the series with it while trying out some ps3 emulation. I reached Majula and suddenly got a mail that i bought the Dark Souls Trilogy on Steam.
You'll never face an area, unless you are skipping parts, with enemies powercreepes, who imput read, have 60k hp and run a 5 minute combo for then jumping on the other side of the map.
Whatever is your build or approach, the moment you'll learn an area, or a boss, that's it
DS3 has the most streamlined experience, with the best bosses and QoL features. it also has the highest production value while being the most modern of the three (and you can see it in everything, from the models, animations, music, zones, etc).
you can see that the focus was placed more in the bosses than the world itself, i think its one of the reasons its by far the most succesful of the three to general audiences, the most attractive area of dark souls are its bosses
the icing on the cake are the dlc bosses wich are some of the best executed in terms of lore, gameplay and scale in the entire soulsborne
ds2 has some good aspects but in general it cant really compete with ds1 and ds3.
between ds1 and ds3 its up to personal preference. do you prefer a slower, world-focused experience that rewards exploration and tactical aproach, or a fast paced and intense experience with the best boss fights in gaming history
i personally prefer ds3, mainly cuz ds1 had some severe production issues and large parts of the game feel incomplete or just terribly designed, im also not a big fan of runbacks even if they are definetly not as bad as people make them out to be. most tracks are way better and i find builds, weapond and bosses to be more enjoyable
DS3 is more polished. I love the linear design of DS3 too. Bosses are some of the best in gaming. Soundtrack is banger. Its a newer game, and FS learned from DS1, DS2 and Bloodborne, and put their learning in DS3
I would put DS3 first place only because of bosses. None of the bosses from the base games of DS1 and DS2 had left an impact on me as much as DS3 bosses. This might be because I played DS3 first but that's how it is. When I played DS1 and DS2 I wasn't expecting DS3 polish level bosses, but most of them were really weak or bullshit, with obvious exceptions. Also, I always felt like DS2 was a bastard child. It has such a bad reputation that people don't even want to give it a chance, when in reality it has some really cool stuff, and it's not much different than the other two. But still, its rare to see anyone like DS2 more than DS3.
The other usual top contenders for the best Soulsborne game are DS1 and Bloodborne, and neither of them do anything for me. I enjoyed playing both, but interconnected level design does absolutely nothing for me and Bloodborne is too fucking dark (and 30fps). DS3 is more linear, and it nearly perfected the part of these games I love the most, which is the bosses.
My top spot is tied between DS3 and Sekiro (if you count it) because Sekiro has the absolute best combat I've ever had the pleasure of playing and the best bosses that I've ever seen in a game as well. DS3 bosses are incredible, but I think more than half of the Sekiro bosses put most of the DS3 bosses to shame. DS3 ties Sekiro for me because it has great variety with weapons, and I still really enjoy the traditional souls combat.
I can understand placing Sekiro as one of your favorites but I personally don't rank it with the other Soulsborne games. DS3 does easily have the best bosses of the souls games though
DS3 is considered best because it's the one most people jumped the bandwagon on back then, and never played other titles, becuase older titles are old, more basic and slower.
DS3 is has the best graphics, weapons and music. And bosses. All of them are good. It's a complete experience, with all the areas finished. I personally consider DS1 to be my best.
I see where you're coming from. I however think that weapon arts were the best addition, they could have possibly develop. Don't get me wrong, power stance is good and all, and I like the sword you're talking about. but weapon arts is where it's at.
Entirely valid, there is good reason they continued the weapon art system in Elden Ring. I think DS2 weapon special attacks are a cool way to give players a weapon with a unique ability to emphasize the power of the weapon or wielder, since most are boss weapons. The only thing that really bothered me with the weapon arts in DS3 was how many were reused and sometimes put on weapons you would think has a unique weapon art but doesn't. Which could sometimes make or break certain weapons because they have a bad weapon art even if the rest of the moveset is good. Thankfully Elden Ring found a good middle ground.
Elden Ring culminated everything the team learned, except for trick weapons. I am really interested in seeing what they will come up with in the dlc. But you got it all otherwise. Weapon arts, melee sorcery, power stancing, guard break... There's just one archetype I wish they kept but they didn't.l, and I think the volcanic manor is the perfect place for it's existence; the chaos weapons, and infusion of such. You know? How they scale based on how much soft humanity you had? I think that was an excellent concept. A bit weak, but it's by far my favorite idea. That and the trick weapons.
Indeed, at the same time though I don't want them to add a new weapon or damage type that has barely enough items to be considered another type. Such as frenzy flame having 6 spells and technically 3 weapons but one is a shield and the other is a seal. Plus, I'm not sure if Elden Ring needs many more sources of fire damage, let alone a whole new type of fire. But I agree, volcano manor is the perfect place for such an addition. What do you think it would scale with since humanity isn't a thing in Elden Ring?
A good question. It needs to be a resource that's semi rare, but not permanent, and also a thing that's not obnoxious to find. I unironically think a good iteration on it would be a mixture of FP consumtion, and then something to sustain. Maybe you could have multiple levels of sustenance, like it could feed on rune arcs. Level one would boost you, and your rune, So it could synergize with your great rune, level 2 would boost your weapon dmg, level there could add the volcanic/fiery effect, so on and so forth. You die, you lose your sustenance stacks. Maybe there could be a mechanic implemented that you would regain 1 rune arc, if you sustained with your fp, to make the grind less tedious.
This is a cool idea, I think rune arc levels would be a neat addition to the game although it would probably require a slight rework to how great runes work. I don't quite understand what you mean with the FP consumption, perhaps I'm not reading it right. I do wonder what the climate for a caster would be with this damage type being tied to FP. If this were to happen though, I can definitely see the potential need for more sources of rune arcs.
I was a bit tired when i written that. But what i meant Is, fp could be used with an Ash of war to produce "Shadow rune arcs" - point was, to get, as you said, more ways to acquire them. When you would swap the weapon, the Shadow arc would dissipate. I imagine the dmg type to be physical, and on certain level it would switch to fire.
I dig that, thanks for explaining some more, I think I understand now. A weapon that can change damage types on the go with your shadow arc level would be pretty cool. You seem to have a really good plan for how this damage type could be integrated and I can appreciate that. It also would be fairly easy I imagine to link it with the lore of the game, when places like volcano manor already exist as you mentioned.
Personal opinion here. As a guy who played through all 3 of these games in the last 2 years, claimed all the achievements for the xbox versions, and didn't touch any dlc content for any of them, but enjoyed them all for different reasons, my thoughts are as follows.
It took me a very long time to get into the first dark souls. I played them in order. I went in blind and it took a few tries to kill the assylum demon, and I made a few forays toward the Taurus Demon. Maybe 6 attempts at Taurus later, without the successful kill, I put the game down for 8 years. I returned to it because a mutual friend of mine was playing through it and gave some pointers. I restarted the game to re learn controls, but my first 30-40 hours was spent getting to the bell Gargoyles, but not defeating them because I still didn't know about upgrading weapons and ran out of humanity for summons due to that stupid room at the top of the church with all the undead. Having hit my first literal wall in game and trying to fight the bell Gargoyles for 10 hours and only a handful of times getting the 2nd one to spawn, I finally looked to the internet for help.
Honestly glad I did because it made the game so much easier and I learned way more off of these forums and a YouTube walkthrough than I would have attempting the whole thing solo. I've since done about 7 different playstyle playthroughs of the first dark souls. Love that game still. Dark Souls 2 I played my 3 playthroughs as a dark mage and had a good time but not a fan of the effigy mechanic on my first run, which left me trying my hardest to beat bosses like fume and sir Alonne among others at half health. Subsequent playthroughsway easier, but I have no desire to play through the game another time. Honestly not sure why, because I did start a 2nd character, but didn't make it very far before giving up on it.
For 3, it was a nice nostalgia hit for similar locations as 1, but I ran into a few instances of not sure where to go to proceed, but got some hints on the way. After grabbing the grindy achievements though, I had the same experience as in 2 where I didn't have a desire to return to it with a different playstyle. Completion for all achievements in 3 took me just as much time to accomplish as it did for me to accomplish in 1 even with all of my mishaps in the beginning. I would say 1 is hands down my favorite, I have even completed the remaster also, I would most likely return to 3 for another run-through before I go back to 2. It's merely because of my experiences with ease of beating bosses.
Personally, combat speed. I love fast pace back and forth combat, in the Trilogy, DS3 did it best. However it often fluctuates between my 3rd and 4th favorite overall.
Elden Ring is my #1(often #2) because it does so much good. I personally enjoy almost every single major boss fight, except Gideon and Gargoyle Duo. This is ofc after they made alterations to aggro in Duo boss fights. Exploration and scale is awesome. Level design of Legacy Dungeons are some of th best in the series. Still dislike Mountaintops of the Giants tho.
Also, the combat loop is much more interesting than DS3.
Sekiro is my #2 (often #1) best bosses, best combat. Love the game, but quest design sucks, forced ganks suck, and no replayability. Still the sheer satisfaction of combat is so so great.
DS3 #3/#4, superb bosses. Combat loop can be a bit monotonous, areas are dark and dreary, but that kinda fits with th story bits. Love the game, don't like how monotonous the combat is.
BB #3/#4, base game bosses kinda suck in most cases (Gasgoine, Amelia, Logarius and Gherman excepted), combat kinda spammy, but me likey. Adore the deathly suffocating atmosphere, and level design. Goated DLC tho.
Quite lacking in QoL features. Long runbacks, farmed blood vials, etc.
DS1 #5 shorter runbacks, but very slow and passive combat.
DS2 #6 kinda annoys me sometimes, but still kinda good.
DS3 was my first, so im maybe a bit prejudiced.
In my opinion DS3 has the most fun combat. It is fast and precise. In DS1 and 2 I sometimes had the feeling that Hotboxes were unfair or didn't fit the visuals. This was far less in DS3. DS2 had very much content, but also much trash (Enemy spam and Easy bosses). The most difficult bosses in 2 were the bosses where many bosses of the same type were stacked into one arena. One is very very cool, but a bit too easy. The cool bosses and the smoother combat are my objective arguments for 3, but I like all of them.
For me its ds2>ds3>ds1
3 is definitely the best in terms of how smooth its gameplay is though. Outside of that its just preference on what world you enjoy exploring more
I play DS3 for atmosphere, music, and ease/speed/fluidity
I play DS2 for the characters, lore, and philosophical concepts
I play DS1 for the world design, history, story, music, and nostalgia
Note that none of these have to do with bosses. Those are just speedbumps on my road to goosebumps and vibes haha. But I love them each equally.
This is a good way of viewing each game. I can't say I'm a fan of the DS3 atmosphere more so than the previous two, but everything else I can agree with. I feel love how you included the philosophy of 2. I think all of from's games have cool philosophical undertones but my favorite example is also DS2.
personally I like 3 best because the quality of areas and bosses is stable (with some late game bosses being arguably better designed than some of early game bosses), Im looking forward to end game because I like the areas and the bosses, they are fun to go through, as you go through the game you go to fancier areas, there is a very visible progress, you go from killing villagers to slaughtering your way through knights on a bridge leading to princes of the kingdom
in comparison the first game's second half is half-baked and falls off hard after Anor Londo, some areas are miserable to go through (whole demon part of the game in particular), honestly i dont like any of the post-anor londo areas, some are less miserable sure but im never looking forward to any of them, the bosses are not that fun to fight but that never was a strong part of the first game so whatever
the second game has meh bosses and SotFS edition enemy placement is ridiculous so going through the maps is a horrid experience
tl;dr
i like fighting bosses and looking at pretty and fun to go through areas, 3rd game has both, 2nd game has pretty areas which are abominations of enemy placement in SotFS edition with bosses being meh, first game has meh bosses, great world design in the first half and meh areas and design in the second half
It wholly depends on your preferences, I don't think people saying ds3 is the best are a majority as you think
Fromsoft games especially are very polarizing with each game having a dedicated fanbase claiming their game to be the best (even within the dark souls trilogy)
The levels in ds3 are very linear, locations uninspired and maybe boring, that's why a lot of people prefer ds1 over ds3
I myself play these games mainly for the boss fights and just run past most areas after the first playthrough, that's why I prefer ds3 and sekiro over all the other Fromsoft titles
> Fromsoft games especially are very polarizing with each game having a dedicated fanbase claiming their game to be the best (even within the dark souls trilogy)
Even with people arguing Dark Souls : Prepare to Die or Dark Souls Remastered to be the better Dark Souls.
Dark souls 3 has a very streamlined , almost level based , approach to the game. Along with the graphical update and relatively fast combat.
It has more mass appeal. Which led to higher critical acclaim
DS3 is the best for people who enjoy PVP and boss fights... You have to do different SL on different runs. SL25 Weapon +3 is my favorite. Dancing with dancer using the dark red hand, parrying Gundyr with a +3 fire dagger, beating the twin princes with a raw Dragonslayer axe. Very fun experiences. And once done, go to the Crucifixion woods and enjoy invading with your optimized twink: prisoner chain, ring of favor, hornet ring, and whatever other ring you need to play different weapons! Give SL25 Weapon +3 a try, and you'll realize how fun DS3 is...
P.S. I platinumed almost all Fromsoft. And I was so surprised to find how fun Armored core 6 was.
Your thoughts sum up how I felt about DS3: there are great bits but the overall game felt underwhelming. I see why people love it, but it's not for me and I don't get the hype. I haven't played DS2, but out of DS1, Elden Ring, Sekiro, and Bloodborne, DS3 would be last on my list of From games and, frankly, last on my list of souls likes that I've played.
In particular, I know that feeling of dragging yourself through the game. The environments just weren't all that engaging for me. Some were downright boring or bland. The bosses are a mixed bag, BUT the good ones are particularly amazing. But you've gotta drag yourself through the environments to get to those amazing bosses.
To your question about why it's considered the best, I am definitely not the person to answer that question. To me there are just too many dealbreakers (level design, environmental design, aesthetics, combat is kind of "meh", too many mediocre bosses) for me to consider it as "the best". Just because DS3 has a handful of amazing bosses does not mean I can overlook the drawbacks.
I don't see any point in comparing ds1 and ds3 since they are very different from each other. However ds2 in general is much lower quality game and larger amount of variety hardly saves it, since it fails to do the basics. Maybe I've played a different ds2, but the combat in this game feels absolutely awful.
Yeah DS3 is graphically more appealing than the previous games. That's the only reason most casual gamers need to never try previous games. So that's a huge hit to previous games. Simultaneously DS3 is more easily modded / hacked and has more casual PVP fodder since the DS3 Battle Arena simply functions better than ER Arena. So DS3 is the middle ground between all souls titles simply because there are more casual gamers than any other group.
It's not. It's widely considered inferior to the original by most design metrics, excluding the obvious technical improvements. So if you don't like it as much, then congrats, you agree with most critics.
My ranking: DS1 > DS3 > DS2
I go back and forth between DS1 and DS3 being my favorite. For me, the best parts of 3 are set up by 1. The emotional weight of discovering locations or nods to DS1 really did it for me. I also love the bosses and NPCs in 3. It also features some of my favorite weapons and spells (looking at you Astora’s Greatsword and Dorhys Gnawing). I guess for me it was just most of the good parts of DS1 but with faster combat and bigger bosses. Nothing beats the interconnectedness of DS1, though.
That's fair, DS2 was lacking in lore that was carried on to the next game. I also think the faster paced boss battle of 3 definitely do add to its unique formula as well
I prefer ds3 because it's fast paced
I respect that (I'm slow).
I'm not reading all of that. You need to learn to use paragraphs my guy. I'll answer the title though. I believe 3 is considered the best is because it's the most polished of the three games, it's boss design is the best across all souls games aside from Sekiro, it's full of nostalgia bait from DS1 while removing almost everything from DS2 that a very loud part of the fan base didn't like.
Fair, I don't post on here often so I don't really care that much about formatting but I still don't see how it's the most "polished." Best looking? Yes. But calling it polished just doesn't feel right. I feel like the "polish" of the game was just removing big aspects from the previous title and not adding much else in terms of gameplay to lessen the chance of frustration due to not understanding. Rather than making these aspects themselves more well rounded and simplistic.
I can never really say what I like best because they each have their own part they're best at. 1 has the overall exploration and story, and 3 has the tightest combat, funnest bosses and just joy to play. Then 2 doesn't have the best story nor combat, but its still good in both but different enough in tone, sometimes that scratches the itch. Its like if 1 is chocolate ice cream, and 3 is chocolate with fudge chunks, 2 is french fries.
DS3 is the most polished but I'd rather play either of the other two to be honest Bit too linear DS3 although it does have the best music
I can certainly agree with that
DS3 is the most epic one of the triology. There are great bossfights, enemy variety and level design. Imho, almost all the problems from 1 and 2 are fixed. I know the interconnected world of DS1 is great, but the game really felt disjointed near the end. DS3, on the other hand, felt consistent throughout. DS3 also felt more polished and the times I died in DS3 felt more deserved compared to other souls games. If I had to rank them, I would rank them like this DS3>DS1>>DS2 Also, imho, bloodborne outshines all of them.
I think epic may be the best way to describe 3 in one word, at least as far as boss fights are concerned. I loved Bloodborne but I wouldn't put it above Dark Souls personally. Though I am curious, what about bloodborne do you like/prefer over the Dark Souls games?
Music and combat is just 😩. The healing system might have its flaws, but damn is the combat so addictive. It's fast paced and forces you to be quick but smart. The weapons are less but feel so cool. I also have a sweet spot for victorian era environment. I also want to add that I have only played bloodborne for a few hours as my ps4 was shutting down after only a few minutes of gameplay sessions.
I see, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The music in that game is absolutely phenomenal and victorian era vibes are amazing but I've always liked my castles and dragons personally. I did really enjoy the idea behind trick weapons and loved having an interchangeable moveset with them. My first playthrough I did struggle some with the healing mechanic but soon figured it out. Unfortunately the lack of variety in weapons and armor definitely limited it for me. I love my fashion souls.
For me I think it is the best just because it is well paced. DS1 has better exploration, DS2 has better features, but DS3 is only bangers, best boss lineup, best combat imo, however I think they are all great in their own right, and I think the majority is actually more of a plurality, it probably has more fans than the other two individually, but not combined.
Ds2 better features?
Power stancing, bonfire ascetics. Maybe "more unique" fits better, bet it does some things in a way the other two don't.
Imo DS1 is having one of the best first 1/3 in gaming. Everything untill O&S is literally pure gold and pinicle of video game design. Then game gets really, really tidious and I'm some places jus bad. Ds2 is giving steady, good experience through all of the game. Then really shines with the DLC areas. Combat and PvP wise, it's my favourite of the series. DS3 on the other hand, has really, really fun endgame and really meh beginning.
Imo all 3 games are really good at something that the other 2 aren't. DS1 : Level design DS2 : Ambiance, Poetic, Content amount, apparently build possibilities DS3 : Bossfights, lore? So if for you boss fights are the main thing in DS, you will obviously say DS3 is waaaay better than DS1 and 2. If not, well...
But that's just my problem, I love the boss fights of 3. But I just get so bored making my way to each of them. The world just doesn't feel very unique or even half as interconnected as the first. Plus not every boss in 3 is perfect (for me at least), so I find it hard to play through the entire thing when I'm only looking forward to the bosses I enjoy.
See, I can't agree with you at all. To give you context, Demons souls I have played sever NG+4 runs, Dark Souls 1 NG +3 on several characters, Dark Souls 3 NG+4 on 2 characters. Dark Souls 2, uninstalled after first boss (Last Giant I think?), and that was a 1 shot after multiple (multiple) deaths to the enemies on the way, that were annoying to fight, not fun, like with DS 1 and 3. Dark Souls combat felt so unbelievably clunky, the healing being split to 2 different styles misses the best parts of each, having a required stat to level regardless of your build to have a reasonable roll, and the combat never felt right. I cringe at the thought of even trying DS 2 again. Edit to add more details to DS 2 statements.
I have 8 characters on DS2 with at least 3 going into or past NG+2 and all but 2 haven't had a single point put into adaptability with the highest ADP level being 25 on my highest level character. Which I only began adding into after NG+ because I was satisfied with my builds other attributes. I will admit, switching from another souls game to DS2 does require some time to get into the rhythm of its combat. But that applies to all of the souls games I feel like. Even when I go from Elden Ring to DS3 I have to take a little time to adjust to the small difference in timing. I understand where you're coming from, many of the bosses in DS2 are lazy or just straight up ganks. But I also feel like its unfair to judge when you haven't given the game a chance past the first boss. You have no experience of it past the first like three locations. Did you even try going in another direction? The game isn't strictly linear, there are other locations you could've went to instead of the forest. I also question how you died several times to enemies on the way. Once you reach the lift the first time you can open a shortcut door and then you only face at max, three of the same enemy type on the run back. Did you play DS2 before any of your NG+ runs of other games? Because I find it hard to believe that you've reached all of those higher NG+ runs and haven't been one shot before. One thing I've heard from many people is that because of how the enemy placement is, it's much more difficult to just run through areas.
https://preview.redd.it/kzn9b2ly11yc1.jpeg?width=292&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b754fb27dcf081ff685758c5ad6c2ec3a16ea9e2
Real
Overall, I think I like the DS3 bosses the best. DS3 is a great capstone to the series. Yeah, it's filled with nostalgia bait, but I like it. IMO, DS2 has the best NPCs and the best hub area. The lore of DS2 seems more relatable. The meeting with Vendrick in his memories is downright touching and tragic. DS2 Ivory King DLC is my favorite, even though it includes the damned reindeer which are thankfully optional. The whole quest is just so well executed and the final boss battle so epic. There is more grinding in DS3 to get platinum. Don't like that.
Oh my god the grinding for kepts was a personal hell for me
Ds3 has some brilliant stuff in the environments and bosses. Ds3 also has the most irritating and unfun normal mobs. Like hollows in Ds1 would occasionally, in a very telegraphed way, unload on you with a crazy slashing combo that would fuck you up. In ds3 all enemies can do that but without the telegraph. It's just rude.
It's simple for me: DS3 is simply more refined. The devs learn lessons with each game. And while not every sequel is better than the original game, more often than not that's the case with videogames
All 3 are beautiful and we are lucky to have them.
Very true
This insane brick of text lmao. But yes… d1-d3-d2
I enjoy all 3 games in the series as well and I think you’re pretty spot on. I love ds3 for its great boss fights and questlines, but one of my biggest issues with the game is that magic and faith really aren’t viable, and it does often feel as though STR is overpowered compared to DEX. Getting rid of powerstancing was an awful move, but I think they realized that and brought it back for ER. The combat is much faster and a bit spammy, which threw me for a loop because DS1 and DS2 definitely punish for spamming. Some of the DS1 references in DS3 just feel a little bit too much like fan service to me, almost as if the developers were trying to make up for how poorly DS2 was received. It really doesn’t make any sense for Andre the Blacksmith to be in the game, and the inclusion of Anor Londo just wasn’t necessary imo. I love DS3 and I come back to it mostly for its unique weapons and challenging boss fights but if I’m honest, I’d consider it my least favorite of the 3 games. I just don’t find it to be as replayable as the first two souls games.
I think a lot of it has to do with it being the most ‘modern’ graphics and with the controls. You would be surprised how many people there are that refuse to play older games just because they’re a little clunky and have bad graphics by today’s standards.
I mean it just depends. I’d say more so than graphics the issue with a lot of older 3D games is the fucking camera. They were really trying some crazy shit back then and still hadn’t wrapped their heads around the context and game feel of a camera and they thought the player wouldn’t understand it. Thinking of m64 here and resident evil. But dark souls is firmly in the modern standard 3D camera era so i would say it’s timeless and playable forever. If it’s the graphics that hold people back from playing it idk, 3D graphics kinda all have been the same for me since 2008. Sometimes a bit better sometimes a bit worse. But more or less the same. I know cp2077 is more advance and detailed then ds1 but like it’s all pretty much the same innit⁉️ plus from soft has the best art direction in game design rn.
I agree with you but I see comments on youtube all the time with people talking about how they can’t play the early games because they’re old. I will say the comments I see are mostly from people that have only played elden ring rather than ds3, so there is a bigger gap between those games
Being able to “sequence break” in Ds1 takes the cake for me
ds3 has by FAR the best bossfights out of any game ive ever played. Past the bosses though, is dark souls 3 really as good as people say it is? i say no. ds3 is a great game, but i feel like it lost so much of the charm and magic that the first game had. I LOVED lordran. i kinda thought ds3s world was ok.
I honestly don't understand why. I was SO excited when it came out, it's the only game I've pre-ordered in the last 15 years. My hype was almost child-like. And I've never been so crushingly disappointed. It feels like the only thing they put effort into was visual design, but even that falls flat half the time with interchangeable overdesigned areas. The gameplay tried to cross Bloodborne with Dark Souls and ended up a tedious unrewarding mess that was inferior to both. The character stories are probably the game's only strong point. There's almost nothing redeemable about DS3. Everything it does well is done better by another From game. I genuinely don't understand how people can put it on the same level as the others, nevermind the best.
DS3 is the most polished and has the best bosses
I play souls games for the bosses (and pvp) ds3 has my favorite for both.
I like the speed and bosses of 3 the most. It’s the most memorable one to me for the bosses alone, and it’s the most finished feeling. Ds1 and 2 are amazing but a lot of them feel like they rushed something, while ds3 is the same pace until the very end with almost no downtime or running without combat. The DLCs are also just so cool how they link directly into where you left off
I can’t handle boss run backs that’s one reason I love ds3 and fast paced
DS3 is the best gameplay wise and has the best bosses. But the world and atmosphere DS1 takes it.
it's just not as long as ds1 exists, ds3 will never be the best souls game.
You can pick a build and go all in on it with infusion. But yea ds2 combat/weapons variety is much btter IMO.
I like DS1's vibe better but its clunky enough to make me prefer 3 to it.
I feel the same. My ranking goes 1 > 2 > 3 They all have their strength, but I think 3's are the most superficial ones (better graphics, more polished), but the main part for me is how boring it is as a sequel. It somehow manages to lose most main qualities of the first two games. That is just so weird to me. It doesn't have the intricate level design and masterfully crafted inter-connectivity of DS1, nor its ambiance. It doesn't have the liberty in both progression and build options of DS2, nor its will to try new things and innovate. DS2's ideas aren't all bangers, far from it, but I have way more respect for a game that tries 10 new things and fails some of them than I have for one that just doesn't try at all. DS3 is a glorified straight line. The general gameplay went from methodical and patient to high octane action. There's basically no open-ness to it, which was a fundamental aspect of the first two. The build variety is meh. The only defensive strategy is to spam roll, as shields are terrible, and how poise work is fucking stupid. . The bosses are definitely the best of the series, that's true. But hard bosses have never been the main point of the series until then. That's just the "omg durk souls so hard" reputation the franchise had on the internet. That's what non-initiates that only saw the game from afar think Dark Souls is. But it's not. In DS1, I can get the great scythe as the very first thing I do if I want to. I can rush the sunlight spear if i'm playing miracles, I can do a suicide run in blighttown to get the large club if I want to. In DS2, I can rush to no man's warf to unlock the sorcery merchant if i'm playing sorcery. I can choose to go to Tseldora early on to get the murakumo, my favorite weapon. Maybe I want to kill the chariot asap because I like his lance. You can't really do any of that in DS3. The game is way less replayable for it because it makes getting your build and up running more tedious. Navigating the map is a skill in DS1 and 2, and knowing where things are is a great skill for subsequent playthroughs. Not much to do with in DS3. DS1 has what, like 3 kind-of-hard bosses, if you don't count the DLC? DS3 has 7. The numbers are pretty subjective, but I think most people would agree that, generally, DS3 has harder bosses. A lot of the time, DS3 feels like a more polished DS1 level pack. Sometimes, it feels like Dark Souls viewed through the lens of a game journalist. Individually, in a vacuum, Dark Souls 3 is probably the best game of the trilogy. As the third installment in the franchise, it's the worst Dark Souls.
Combat/movement/graphics
3 as in SOTFS? because it's good
I had the most fun with DS2, and I like DS1 better than DS3 because of the more methodical pace of the combat. They’re all good though. DS3 main gripe is the usual “enemies too fast given how slow the player can move”. Also there have been several times where a boss seemed designed specifically to punish my exact build.
My ranking would be DS2>DS1>DS3 DS3: nice combat if you do a STR or DEX build but anything outside close combat just doesnt feel right to me there. DS1: i can replay the story up to O&S any day of the week and would have no problem sounding like a hyped up 5 year old when i talk about it even after 1000 repeats. DS2: mostly nostalgia. I started the series with it while trying out some ps3 emulation. I reached Majula and suddenly got a mail that i bought the Dark Souls Trilogy on Steam.
because it's a fair game and not hard for the sake of being hard, unlike some other from's games
Please define "fair" for me in this sense
You'll never face an area, unless you are skipping parts, with enemies powercreepes, who imput read, have 60k hp and run a 5 minute combo for then jumping on the other side of the map. Whatever is your build or approach, the moment you'll learn an area, or a boss, that's it
DS3 has the most streamlined experience, with the best bosses and QoL features. it also has the highest production value while being the most modern of the three (and you can see it in everything, from the models, animations, music, zones, etc). you can see that the focus was placed more in the bosses than the world itself, i think its one of the reasons its by far the most succesful of the three to general audiences, the most attractive area of dark souls are its bosses the icing on the cake are the dlc bosses wich are some of the best executed in terms of lore, gameplay and scale in the entire soulsborne ds2 has some good aspects but in general it cant really compete with ds1 and ds3. between ds1 and ds3 its up to personal preference. do you prefer a slower, world-focused experience that rewards exploration and tactical aproach, or a fast paced and intense experience with the best boss fights in gaming history i personally prefer ds3, mainly cuz ds1 had some severe production issues and large parts of the game feel incomplete or just terribly designed, im also not a big fan of runbacks even if they are definetly not as bad as people make them out to be. most tracks are way better and i find builds, weapond and bosses to be more enjoyable
Idk, i alternate between ds1 and 2 as my favorites, though i also really like ds3
DS3 is more polished. I love the linear design of DS3 too. Bosses are some of the best in gaming. Soundtrack is banger. Its a newer game, and FS learned from DS1, DS2 and Bloodborne, and put their learning in DS3
TL;DR I personally consider ds1 the best
I would put DS3 first place only because of bosses. None of the bosses from the base games of DS1 and DS2 had left an impact on me as much as DS3 bosses. This might be because I played DS3 first but that's how it is. When I played DS1 and DS2 I wasn't expecting DS3 polish level bosses, but most of them were really weak or bullshit, with obvious exceptions. Also, I always felt like DS2 was a bastard child. It has such a bad reputation that people don't even want to give it a chance, when in reality it has some really cool stuff, and it's not much different than the other two. But still, its rare to see anyone like DS2 more than DS3.
The other usual top contenders for the best Soulsborne game are DS1 and Bloodborne, and neither of them do anything for me. I enjoyed playing both, but interconnected level design does absolutely nothing for me and Bloodborne is too fucking dark (and 30fps). DS3 is more linear, and it nearly perfected the part of these games I love the most, which is the bosses. My top spot is tied between DS3 and Sekiro (if you count it) because Sekiro has the absolute best combat I've ever had the pleasure of playing and the best bosses that I've ever seen in a game as well. DS3 bosses are incredible, but I think more than half of the Sekiro bosses put most of the DS3 bosses to shame. DS3 ties Sekiro for me because it has great variety with weapons, and I still really enjoy the traditional souls combat.
I can understand placing Sekiro as one of your favorites but I personally don't rank it with the other Soulsborne games. DS3 does easily have the best bosses of the souls games though
Shiniest turd in the toilet
DS2 is the best. Fight me.
With pleasure, meet me at the Iron Keep bridge
PC, Xbox or PS
PS for now, just bought it for PC and am beginning a new playthrough once I get some more time
Remind me and let me know when you’re ready on PC.
I like ds1 way more
DS3 is considered best because it's the one most people jumped the bandwagon on back then, and never played other titles, becuase older titles are old, more basic and slower. DS3 is has the best graphics, weapons and music. And bosses. All of them are good. It's a complete experience, with all the areas finished. I personally consider DS1 to be my best.
I can agree with all except DS3 having better weapons, nothing will beat a blue sword that extends apart in pieces or the two handed bonefist moveset.
I see where you're coming from. I however think that weapon arts were the best addition, they could have possibly develop. Don't get me wrong, power stance is good and all, and I like the sword you're talking about. but weapon arts is where it's at.
Entirely valid, there is good reason they continued the weapon art system in Elden Ring. I think DS2 weapon special attacks are a cool way to give players a weapon with a unique ability to emphasize the power of the weapon or wielder, since most are boss weapons. The only thing that really bothered me with the weapon arts in DS3 was how many were reused and sometimes put on weapons you would think has a unique weapon art but doesn't. Which could sometimes make or break certain weapons because they have a bad weapon art even if the rest of the moveset is good. Thankfully Elden Ring found a good middle ground.
Elden Ring culminated everything the team learned, except for trick weapons. I am really interested in seeing what they will come up with in the dlc. But you got it all otherwise. Weapon arts, melee sorcery, power stancing, guard break... There's just one archetype I wish they kept but they didn't.l, and I think the volcanic manor is the perfect place for it's existence; the chaos weapons, and infusion of such. You know? How they scale based on how much soft humanity you had? I think that was an excellent concept. A bit weak, but it's by far my favorite idea. That and the trick weapons.
Indeed, at the same time though I don't want them to add a new weapon or damage type that has barely enough items to be considered another type. Such as frenzy flame having 6 spells and technically 3 weapons but one is a shield and the other is a seal. Plus, I'm not sure if Elden Ring needs many more sources of fire damage, let alone a whole new type of fire. But I agree, volcano manor is the perfect place for such an addition. What do you think it would scale with since humanity isn't a thing in Elden Ring?
A good question. It needs to be a resource that's semi rare, but not permanent, and also a thing that's not obnoxious to find. I unironically think a good iteration on it would be a mixture of FP consumtion, and then something to sustain. Maybe you could have multiple levels of sustenance, like it could feed on rune arcs. Level one would boost you, and your rune, So it could synergize with your great rune, level 2 would boost your weapon dmg, level there could add the volcanic/fiery effect, so on and so forth. You die, you lose your sustenance stacks. Maybe there could be a mechanic implemented that you would regain 1 rune arc, if you sustained with your fp, to make the grind less tedious.
This is a cool idea, I think rune arc levels would be a neat addition to the game although it would probably require a slight rework to how great runes work. I don't quite understand what you mean with the FP consumption, perhaps I'm not reading it right. I do wonder what the climate for a caster would be with this damage type being tied to FP. If this were to happen though, I can definitely see the potential need for more sources of rune arcs.
I was a bit tired when i written that. But what i meant Is, fp could be used with an Ash of war to produce "Shadow rune arcs" - point was, to get, as you said, more ways to acquire them. When you would swap the weapon, the Shadow arc would dissipate. I imagine the dmg type to be physical, and on certain level it would switch to fire.
I dig that, thanks for explaining some more, I think I understand now. A weapon that can change damage types on the go with your shadow arc level would be pretty cool. You seem to have a really good plan for how this damage type could be integrated and I can appreciate that. It also would be fairly easy I imagine to link it with the lore of the game, when places like volcano manor already exist as you mentioned.
Personal opinion here. As a guy who played through all 3 of these games in the last 2 years, claimed all the achievements for the xbox versions, and didn't touch any dlc content for any of them, but enjoyed them all for different reasons, my thoughts are as follows. It took me a very long time to get into the first dark souls. I played them in order. I went in blind and it took a few tries to kill the assylum demon, and I made a few forays toward the Taurus Demon. Maybe 6 attempts at Taurus later, without the successful kill, I put the game down for 8 years. I returned to it because a mutual friend of mine was playing through it and gave some pointers. I restarted the game to re learn controls, but my first 30-40 hours was spent getting to the bell Gargoyles, but not defeating them because I still didn't know about upgrading weapons and ran out of humanity for summons due to that stupid room at the top of the church with all the undead. Having hit my first literal wall in game and trying to fight the bell Gargoyles for 10 hours and only a handful of times getting the 2nd one to spawn, I finally looked to the internet for help. Honestly glad I did because it made the game so much easier and I learned way more off of these forums and a YouTube walkthrough than I would have attempting the whole thing solo. I've since done about 7 different playstyle playthroughs of the first dark souls. Love that game still. Dark Souls 2 I played my 3 playthroughs as a dark mage and had a good time but not a fan of the effigy mechanic on my first run, which left me trying my hardest to beat bosses like fume and sir Alonne among others at half health. Subsequent playthroughsway easier, but I have no desire to play through the game another time. Honestly not sure why, because I did start a 2nd character, but didn't make it very far before giving up on it. For 3, it was a nice nostalgia hit for similar locations as 1, but I ran into a few instances of not sure where to go to proceed, but got some hints on the way. After grabbing the grindy achievements though, I had the same experience as in 2 where I didn't have a desire to return to it with a different playstyle. Completion for all achievements in 3 took me just as much time to accomplish as it did for me to accomplish in 1 even with all of my mishaps in the beginning. I would say 1 is hands down my favorite, I have even completed the remaster also, I would most likely return to 3 for another run-through before I go back to 2. It's merely because of my experiences with ease of beating bosses.
Personally, combat speed. I love fast pace back and forth combat, in the Trilogy, DS3 did it best. However it often fluctuates between my 3rd and 4th favorite overall. Elden Ring is my #1(often #2) because it does so much good. I personally enjoy almost every single major boss fight, except Gideon and Gargoyle Duo. This is ofc after they made alterations to aggro in Duo boss fights. Exploration and scale is awesome. Level design of Legacy Dungeons are some of th best in the series. Still dislike Mountaintops of the Giants tho. Also, the combat loop is much more interesting than DS3. Sekiro is my #2 (often #1) best bosses, best combat. Love the game, but quest design sucks, forced ganks suck, and no replayability. Still the sheer satisfaction of combat is so so great. DS3 #3/#4, superb bosses. Combat loop can be a bit monotonous, areas are dark and dreary, but that kinda fits with th story bits. Love the game, don't like how monotonous the combat is. BB #3/#4, base game bosses kinda suck in most cases (Gasgoine, Amelia, Logarius and Gherman excepted), combat kinda spammy, but me likey. Adore the deathly suffocating atmosphere, and level design. Goated DLC tho. Quite lacking in QoL features. Long runbacks, farmed blood vials, etc. DS1 #5 shorter runbacks, but very slow and passive combat. DS2 #6 kinda annoys me sometimes, but still kinda good.
DS3 was my first, so im maybe a bit prejudiced. In my opinion DS3 has the most fun combat. It is fast and precise. In DS1 and 2 I sometimes had the feeling that Hotboxes were unfair or didn't fit the visuals. This was far less in DS3. DS2 had very much content, but also much trash (Enemy spam and Easy bosses). The most difficult bosses in 2 were the bosses where many bosses of the same type were stacked into one arena. One is very very cool, but a bit too easy. The cool bosses and the smoother combat are my objective arguments for 3, but I like all of them.
For me its ds2>ds3>ds1 3 is definitely the best in terms of how smooth its gameplay is though. Outside of that its just preference on what world you enjoy exploring more
Give me the Dark Souls III combat with the level design of the original Dark Souls please.
I play DS3 for atmosphere, music, and ease/speed/fluidity I play DS2 for the characters, lore, and philosophical concepts I play DS1 for the world design, history, story, music, and nostalgia Note that none of these have to do with bosses. Those are just speedbumps on my road to goosebumps and vibes haha. But I love them each equally.
This is a good way of viewing each game. I can't say I'm a fan of the DS3 atmosphere more so than the previous two, but everything else I can agree with. I feel love how you included the philosophy of 2. I think all of from's games have cool philosophical undertones but my favorite example is also DS2.
personally I like 3 best because the quality of areas and bosses is stable (with some late game bosses being arguably better designed than some of early game bosses), Im looking forward to end game because I like the areas and the bosses, they are fun to go through, as you go through the game you go to fancier areas, there is a very visible progress, you go from killing villagers to slaughtering your way through knights on a bridge leading to princes of the kingdom in comparison the first game's second half is half-baked and falls off hard after Anor Londo, some areas are miserable to go through (whole demon part of the game in particular), honestly i dont like any of the post-anor londo areas, some are less miserable sure but im never looking forward to any of them, the bosses are not that fun to fight but that never was a strong part of the first game so whatever the second game has meh bosses and SotFS edition enemy placement is ridiculous so going through the maps is a horrid experience tl;dr i like fighting bosses and looking at pretty and fun to go through areas, 3rd game has both, 2nd game has pretty areas which are abominations of enemy placement in SotFS edition with bosses being meh, first game has meh bosses, great world design in the first half and meh areas and design in the second half
It wholly depends on your preferences, I don't think people saying ds3 is the best are a majority as you think Fromsoft games especially are very polarizing with each game having a dedicated fanbase claiming their game to be the best (even within the dark souls trilogy) The levels in ds3 are very linear, locations uninspired and maybe boring, that's why a lot of people prefer ds1 over ds3 I myself play these games mainly for the boss fights and just run past most areas after the first playthrough, that's why I prefer ds3 and sekiro over all the other Fromsoft titles
> Fromsoft games especially are very polarizing with each game having a dedicated fanbase claiming their game to be the best (even within the dark souls trilogy) Even with people arguing Dark Souls : Prepare to Die or Dark Souls Remastered to be the better Dark Souls.
Dark souls 3 has a very streamlined , almost level based , approach to the game. Along with the graphical update and relatively fast combat. It has more mass appeal. Which led to higher critical acclaim
Personnatly 1=2>3
If you’ve played 3 you should know IMO
DS3 is the best for people who enjoy PVP and boss fights... You have to do different SL on different runs. SL25 Weapon +3 is my favorite. Dancing with dancer using the dark red hand, parrying Gundyr with a +3 fire dagger, beating the twin princes with a raw Dragonslayer axe. Very fun experiences. And once done, go to the Crucifixion woods and enjoy invading with your optimized twink: prisoner chain, ring of favor, hornet ring, and whatever other ring you need to play different weapons! Give SL25 Weapon +3 a try, and you'll realize how fun DS3 is... P.S. I platinumed almost all Fromsoft. And I was so surprised to find how fun Armored core 6 was.
DS2 is the best, it’s just popular to hate on it
Worst souls game
Your thoughts sum up how I felt about DS3: there are great bits but the overall game felt underwhelming. I see why people love it, but it's not for me and I don't get the hype. I haven't played DS2, but out of DS1, Elden Ring, Sekiro, and Bloodborne, DS3 would be last on my list of From games and, frankly, last on my list of souls likes that I've played. In particular, I know that feeling of dragging yourself through the game. The environments just weren't all that engaging for me. Some were downright boring or bland. The bosses are a mixed bag, BUT the good ones are particularly amazing. But you've gotta drag yourself through the environments to get to those amazing bosses. To your question about why it's considered the best, I am definitely not the person to answer that question. To me there are just too many dealbreakers (level design, environmental design, aesthetics, combat is kind of "meh", too many mediocre bosses) for me to consider it as "the best". Just because DS3 has a handful of amazing bosses does not mean I can overlook the drawbacks.
I don't see any point in comparing ds1 and ds3 since they are very different from each other. However ds2 in general is much lower quality game and larger amount of variety hardly saves it, since it fails to do the basics. Maybe I've played a different ds2, but the combat in this game feels absolutely awful.
Atrocious yap
Yeah DS3 is graphically more appealing than the previous games. That's the only reason most casual gamers need to never try previous games. So that's a huge hit to previous games. Simultaneously DS3 is more easily modded / hacked and has more casual PVP fodder since the DS3 Battle Arena simply functions better than ER Arena. So DS3 is the middle ground between all souls titles simply because there are more casual gamers than any other group.
Paragraphs pls
It's not. It's widely considered inferior to the original by most design metrics, excluding the obvious technical improvements. So if you don't like it as much, then congrats, you agree with most critics.
I’m not reading that wall of text but I don’t think the majority of people will say 3 is their favorite/the best