Dark Souls 3 | PS4, Xbone & PC | Praise the Sun

More progress on this last night, cleared out most of the Undead Settlement - helped Onion boy beat the Fire Demon, took down the "Ice Knight" guy who was properly annoying, and beat the Curse-Rotted Greatwood on my first go.

Getting back into the swing of the more measured approach needed by this now. Playing it at 60FPS on the PC compared to the ~30 of Bloodborne on PS4 and DS1 on Switch also makes everything feel a bit different too which has taken some adapting to!

Had a quick shot at this again last night, exploring the Road of Sacrifices mainly.

There's just something intangible about this that means I'm not enjoying it as much as I did DS1. That the area design doesn't feel as good is part of it, along with the fact that nothing feels as connected as it did in the first game. That feeling of being in a large, connected play space with many areas to explore at any one time was such a huge part of the original game.

The ability to warp around from the very start (necessitated in part by this more disconnected world design) is also a negative - another thing that stops you feeling connected to a large place that you are exploring, instead you are just diving in and out of choice locations at will. Having to travel back to the Firelink Shrine to level up is also bloody annoying.

The bonfires are also way to close together making exploration feel less of a risk - there aren't any moments where you feel a long way from safety and genuinely fear dying.

It's still a lot of fun, but it's not up there with the original.

Jenuall wrote:Had a quick shot at this again last night, exploring the Road of Sacrifices mainly.

There's just something intangible about this that means I'm not enjoying it as much as I did DS1. That the area design doesn't feel as good is part of it, along with the fact that nothing feels as connected as it did in the first game. That feeling of being in a large, connected play space with many areas to explore at any one time was such a huge part of the original game.

The ability to warp around from the very start (necessitated in part by this more disconnected world design) is also a negative - another thing that stops you feeling connected to a large place that you are exploring, instead you are just diving in and out of choice locations at will. Having to travel back to the Firelink Shrine to level up is also bloody annoying.

The bonfires are also way to close together making exploration feel less of a risk - there aren't any moments where you feel a long way from safety and genuinely fear dying.

It's still a lot of fun, but it's not up there with the original.

It's basically a series of corridors. There's some loop back (mostly in individual areas) but it's not a sprawling world like the others

Hexx wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Had a quick shot at this again last night, exploring the Road of Sacrifices mainly.

There's just something intangible about this that means I'm not enjoying it as much as I did DS1. That the area design doesn't feel as good is part of it, along with the fact that nothing feels as connected as it did in the first game. That feeling of being in a large, connected play space with many areas to explore at any one time was such a huge part of the original game.

The ability to warp around from the very start (necessitated in part by this more disconnected world design) is also a negative - another thing that stops you feeling connected to a large place that you are exploring, instead you are just diving in and out of choice locations at will. Having to travel back to the Firelink Shrine to level up is also bloody annoying.

The bonfires are also way to close together making exploration feel less of a risk - there aren't any moments where you feel a long way from safety and genuinely fear dying.

It's still a lot of fun, but it's not up there with the original.

It's basically a series of corridors. There's some loop back (mostly in individual areas) but it's not a sprawling world like the others

Yeah that's pretty much how it feels (and how I remember most of it from last time I played)

It's still fun and the combat and bosses are as enjoyable as ever, but it's not going to take the same place in my affections as either DS1 or Bloodborne have at this rate.

Still plodding along in this, up to the Abyss Watchers now.

It all feels very mechanical and just lacking compared to DS1 and BB, but a big part may be that I've been spending most of my gaming time on this "series" now for the last 4-5 months and might just be getting a bit jaded with it all in general!