Happy Life
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Breezed through it again as a dex-dualist with the default starting sabres; spent a bit more time than on the first one—around 40+ hours.
At first, the sabres seemed pretty OP, but after a while, they practically stopped staggering mobs, except for the most pathetic ones, though they still dealt good damage. And although out of habit I still kept a 100% Drangleic shield on me for those rare cases when you encounter some crazed enemies who swing a knife ten times but get stunned for five seconds when hitting a shield—making them easier and faster to block than to roll around—otherwise, it just hung on my back. Thankfully, as Alex mentioned in his old post, we're "Bloodborne" now, and the combat is punchier and more roll-oriented. With this same dual dex build, I tried a couple of katanas and some rapier-needle thing from the first DLC, but the katanas were only slightly stronger while the attack speed suffered noticeably, and the rapier-thing has a too confusing and awkward moveset when attacking with two hands.
As for armor, I picked up some Viking gear in the undead settlement and finished the game with it under 69(smirk)% load; it practically plays no role in this part.
Generally speaking, I liked it—in the context of replaying the entire series at once. That is, looking at it that way, there's an incredible amount of quality-of-life improvements in the design of everything. Locations—practically all are fine, without the stressful gimmicks of the first or second; enemies—practically all are reasonable. But... the enemies feel monotonous compared to the previous parts, and the level design in terms of interest loses heavily to the second. The maps themselves are very beautiful and visually detailed, even if they seem greyish against the backdrop of previous parts, but they don't really have any interesting shortcuts or "puzzles" (Souls-like style, giving them a pass). There are practically no stupid gimmicks like pitch darkness, traps from all sides, heaps of chasms, monsters jumpscaring from around corners, or various narrow bridges, but there are practically no interesting ones either—like the multi-level pirate grotto with torches from the second. You just run through the maps and run—well okay, I don't really care, although a couple of spots were decent—for example, the ballista on the underground lake (though the location itself is crap).
I didn't like the thematic reuse of locations from previous parts. I mean, I understand of course that it's for lore and direction—whether it's a multiverse with parallel worlds or a continent with countries and times overlapping in some places—but seeing a blend of Izalith with the underground lake, and a crypt on top of that—the most tedious locations of DS 1 for me—wasn't great at all.
While it's not the main thing for me, I didn't particularly like the NPCs. Completely random guys who ask point-blank—"take me as your teacher-merchant at the base," you say "yes," and they... become your teacher-merchant at the base! It's convenient, of course... and can be considered a quality-of-life improvement... but it's just too soulless. And after that, they say one line of dialogue; in reality, it's as if they weren't even there.
The bosses looked very beautiful in these graphics, no doubt, but after the second one with a Glass Cannon build in the Covenant of Champions (where I had to throw about 70 dark orbs during a single ten-minute DLC boss fight, doing several dodges or running 200 meters between EVERY shot), and generally after several Souls games before this, they were nothing. The same old movesets, nothing new, only now they're easier to dodge since combat is more dynamic, and there's no need to block with a shield or flank, and the sabres shred so fast that before you can blink, you've already won. Plus, you can tank in the face with Estus, which is plentiful here, and the HP bar is huge even without upgrading (it even hardcaps at 50 instead of 40, heh yeah). In general, in terms of mob and boss difficulty, the third is closer to the casual first one, but I wouldn't say it's completely for kids. Overall, it's a golden mean between 1 and 2, leaning more toward the simplicity of the first. Even the ranged mobs here don't lead their shots like in the second; they've degraded back to console players, where you step a millimeter to the side and they fire a bolt into thin air. The only thing that pleasantly surprised me—the dogs in this part are the craziest.
In short, by all possible evaluation parameters except graphics—a solid mid-tier )). Which, of course, doesn't say much in its favor as a hyped title, but perhaps it can provide an averaged and modernized experience of the trilogy.
In my head before replaying, I always put the third in the shit-tier because it didn't really leave an impression, but in essence, it's a polished first one, more focused on dynamics and, shall we say, accessible for everyone. Since DS 1 unexpectedly disappointed me with its excessive obsolescence, my subjective tier list looks like this: divine axe >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ds 2 >>>> ds 3 >>>>>>> ds 1 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> code vein
Thank you for your attention.
***
Forgot to mention—the most interesting boss of the trilogy I'd call Elana from the first DLC of the second. I liked that the fight includes both running across the arena, but in moderation, not as tedious as most dragons in all parts, and rolling; dodging both attacks and spells and summons, and the fight itself includes some random element, which doesn't reduce it 100% to memorizing a pattern and which side to circle the boss.
Breezed through it again as a dex-dualist with the default starting sabres; spent a bit more time than on the first one—around 40+ hours.
At first, the sabres seemed pretty OP, but after a while, they practically stopped staggering mobs, except for the most pathetic ones, though they still dealt good damage. And although out of habit I still kept a 100% Drangleic shield on me for those rare cases when you encounter some crazed enemies who swing a knife ten times but get stunned for five seconds when hitting a shield—making them easier and faster to block than to roll around—otherwise, it just hung on my back. Thankfully, as Alex mentioned in his old post, we're "Bloodborne" now, and the combat is punchier and more roll-oriented. With this same dual dex build, I tried a couple of katanas and some rapier-needle thing from the first DLC, but the katanas were only slightly stronger while the attack speed suffered noticeably, and the rapier-thing has a too confusing and awkward moveset when attacking with two hands.
As for armor, I picked up some Viking gear in the undead settlement and finished the game with it under 69(smirk)% load; it practically plays no role in this part.
Generally speaking, I liked it—in the context of replaying the entire series at once. That is, looking at it that way, there's an incredible amount of quality-of-life improvements in the design of everything. Locations—practically all are fine, without the stressful gimmicks of the first or second; enemies—practically all are reasonable. But... the enemies feel monotonous compared to the previous parts, and the level design in terms of interest loses heavily to the second. The maps themselves are very beautiful and visually detailed, even if they seem greyish against the backdrop of previous parts, but they don't really have any interesting shortcuts or "puzzles" (Souls-like style, giving them a pass). There are practically no stupid gimmicks like pitch darkness, traps from all sides, heaps of chasms, monsters jumpscaring from around corners, or various narrow bridges, but there are practically no interesting ones either—like the multi-level pirate grotto with torches from the second. You just run through the maps and run—well okay, I don't really care, although a couple of spots were decent—for example, the ballista on the underground lake (though the location itself is crap).
I didn't like the thematic reuse of locations from previous parts. I mean, I understand of course that it's for lore and direction—whether it's a multiverse with parallel worlds or a continent with countries and times overlapping in some places—but seeing a blend of Izalith with the underground lake, and a crypt on top of that—the most tedious locations of DS 1 for me—wasn't great at all.
While it's not the main thing for me, I didn't particularly like the NPCs. Completely random guys who ask point-blank—"take me as your teacher-merchant at the base," you say "yes," and they... become your teacher-merchant at the base! It's convenient, of course... and can be considered a quality-of-life improvement... but it's just too soulless. And after that, they say one line of dialogue; in reality, it's as if they weren't even there.
The bosses looked very beautiful in these graphics, no doubt, but after the second one with a Glass Cannon build in the Covenant of Champions (where I had to throw about 70 dark orbs during a single ten-minute DLC boss fight, doing several dodges or running 200 meters between EVERY shot), and generally after several Souls games before this, they were nothing. The same old movesets, nothing new, only now they're easier to dodge since combat is more dynamic, and there's no need to block with a shield or flank, and the sabres shred so fast that before you can blink, you've already won. Plus, you can tank in the face with Estus, which is plentiful here, and the HP bar is huge even without upgrading (it even hardcaps at 50 instead of 40, heh yeah). In general, in terms of mob and boss difficulty, the third is closer to the casual first one, but I wouldn't say it's completely for kids. Overall, it's a golden mean between 1 and 2, leaning more toward the simplicity of the first. Even the ranged mobs here don't lead their shots like in the second; they've degraded back to console players, where you step a millimeter to the side and they fire a bolt into thin air. The only thing that pleasantly surprised me—the dogs in this part are the craziest.
In short, by all possible evaluation parameters except graphics—a solid mid-tier )). Which, of course, doesn't say much in its favor as a hyped title, but perhaps it can provide an averaged and modernized experience of the trilogy.
In my head before replaying, I always put the third in the shit-tier because it didn't really leave an impression, but in essence, it's a polished first one, more focused on dynamics and, shall we say, accessible for everyone. Since DS 1 unexpectedly disappointed me with its excessive obsolescence, my subjective tier list looks like this: divine axe >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ds 2 >>>> ds 3 >>>>>>> ds 1 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> code vein
Thank you for your attention.
***
Forgot to mention—the most interesting boss of the trilogy I'd call Elana from the first DLC of the second. I liked that the fight includes both running across the arena, but in moderation, not as tedious as most dragons in all parts, and rolling; dodging both attacks and spells and summons, and the fight itself includes some random element, which doesn't reduce it 100% to memorizing a pattern and which side to circle the boss.
My sword, my trusted ally, unphased by my aspect.
