What makes a good action role-playing game (RPG)? Every developer tries to find something that will stick with the fans. The action RPG has always been popular since the likes of The Legend of Zelda came out 30 years ago, but it began to gain a revival in popularity at the beginning of the 2010s thanks to advances in technology and the willingness of developers to test (and break) the limits of said technology. The latest installation of the Dark Souls series, Dark Souls 3, is an attempt to bring back the good old days of extremely difficult action RPGs, which some of our older readers may have spent hours upon hours trying to beat in the 1990s.
Dark Souls 3 is set in the Kingdom of Lothric. A bell has rung to signal that the First Flame, which prolongs the Age of Fire, is dying out. The Age of Fire is a period where one rises from a bonfire upon their death, causing one to live a long, unnatural life. However, this is seen as a curse by some who cannot rest. The impending Age of Darkness is about to start, and only by linking the fires can the Age of Darkness be prevented.
The game revolves around completing quests as one of several “Unkindled,” or an undead hero wandering the land of Lothric. The only hope to keep the Age of Fire going is to kill the heroes who have linked the fire in the past. Like any RPG, there are several stats one must consider when playing the game: Vigor, which governs HP and governs resistance to Frost; Attunement, which governs Focus Points (FP), another stat that allows you to use Weapon Arts and spells, as well as determines the number of attunement slots; Endurance, which governs stamina, lightning defense, and bleeding resistance; Vitality, which governs physical defense (but can be affected by other attributes), maximum equipment load, and poison resistance; Strength, which governs the ability to wield powerful and heavy weapons, fire defense, and attack strength; Dexterity, which governs advanced weapons, attack strength, casting time, and falling damage; Intelligence, which governs sorcery, pyromancy, spell potency, and magic defense; Faith, which governs miracles, pyromancy, spell potency, and defense against dark spells; and Luck, which governs item discovery and allows your bleeds and poisons to have greater effect. Each stat has a soft cap (which means diminishing returns after a certain point), but one can adjust their play style for brute strength, speed, casting, and the ability to survive.
You can choose from ten classes, each with their respective strengths: knight, mercenary, warrior, herald, thief, assassin, sorcerer, pyromancer, cleric, or deprived. Each class has different starting stats and you can modify them to your play style. You can choose a starting item called a gift, which is also consumable. They either cause damage, restore HP, restore FP, infuse weapons to have certain stats, increase Item Discovery, or even for stealth capabilities when the enemies are too strong or too fast.
Like many action RPGs, you can equip items that enhance your fighting capabilities. There are weapons, shields, spell tools, armor, and rings, each boosting certain statistics. You can also reinforce these weapons, infuse them to use a certain element, and even use the souls of enemies to create certain weapons.
If you want to play with friends, there is a multiplayer mode, and the mode has items exclusive to that mode. You can fight off invasions with up to four friends including yourself (six if you use a special item) as well as invade other worlds to fight against other groups of people.
You can join one of eight covenants, each with different joining conditions: the Warriors of Sunlight, the Way of Blue, the Blue Sentinels, the Blades of the Darkmoon, Rosaria’s Fingers, Mound-Makers, Watchdogs of Farron, and the Aldrich Faithful. You can switch allegiances on the fly and customize your playstyle.
Dark Souls 3 follows in the vein of the series for increasingly difficult gameplay that brings us back to the days of 8-bit and 16-bit gaming, where enemies were difficult to defeat. If you enjoy a challenge (and want to bring friends with you), consider picking up Dark Souls 3 and staying a while.
Also published in GADGETS MAGAZINE June 2016 issue.
Words by Jose Alvarez