The final installment of the Dark Souls series enthralled fans and pays tribute to the first game while taking its own path, making a unique player experience.

BY ANDREW SMITH
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While it may lack the novelty of its underground origin, Dark Souls 3 is the most complete and informed Souls game to date – a fitting conclusion to a masterful series.

Developer FromSoftware took obvious and extensive inspiration from previous titles. Thankfully avoiding the second game in the series, their additions predominantly borrow from the original Dark Souls and well-received experiment Bloodborne.

The classic structure of the series is here: engaging NPC storylines, complex boss fights, incentivized exploration, high difficulty and the satisfaction of victory.

The series respects the intuition of the gamer and rewards those with the perseverance to follow this format.

Near the beginning of my still continuing playthrough, I ran into a knight of Catarina – a NPC with a direct connection to a beloved character in the first game. This storyline is hardly guaranteed, and I had to go through extensive exploration before finding a second encounter. This made the following tag-team battle against a fire demon all the sweeter.

Dark Souls 3 doesn’t rely on the guaranteed coincidence of encounters and spoon-feed players storyline like in other streamlined titles. If a player wants to find out more, they will have to put in the work to do so.

However, as unique and well executed as these features are, they’re staples of the series.

The most worthwhile growth in this installment stems from FromSoftware’s Bloodborne.

Bloodborne brought a grit and savagery that hadn’t been seen in a Souls title. This same grit can be seen in Dark Souls 3.

Enemies have a newfound aggression, and environments show a twisted elegance.

Settings seemingly developed by Edgar Allen Poe reflect the degraded prestige of the old powers at this point in the series.

But the settings keep diversity while embracing this description. Transitions between areas are noticed but plausible. This cohesion was lacking in previous titles, where players would make sharp transitions between detached environments.

Dark Souls 3 hearkens back to the magic of the first game, while building on previous installments and taking the series in an original direction. FromSoftware has created a legitimate, early contender for game of the year.

Though, “Only embers remain,” this final installment of the Souls trilogy has one last time rekindled the passion among its fanbase.