So far, Dark Souls III is a more-than-welcome installment in the wonderfully-minted "Soulsborne" genre, combining the lore and features of the Dark Souls universe with the more aggressive-oriented Bloodborne. I say “so far”, since I only received the retail copies of the game late last week, and the PS4 version of the game I've been playing is not yet connected to the game server. That means no PvP, no co-op, no messages, no ghosts, and no bloodstains.
Now, I can base my impressions on the Japanese version of the game, which has already been out for several weeks and which many Xbox One fans have had access to by downloading the full version and then simply switching the dialogue to the English international version. And I will for some sections for these impressions, but not the online part until I can experience it firsthand.
In general, Dark Souls III has a higher benchmark for difficulty than the other Soulsborne titles. Apart from the first few bosses which veterans will decimate, but will still give newcomers a lot of trouble, successful combat relies on dodging. You can use a shield, but many attacks will either go through the shield and multiple enemy types have combo attacks that will easily stagger you if you continually use your shield as a crutch. This includes the standard knights that appear early in the game who are sure to give new players a headache, in part because attack patterns are more randomized than before, but also bosses who tend to have wide sweeping attacks that you'll need to roll away from.
Those of you who think that the boss fights in Dark Souls II were too easy will be much more satisfied by the bosses in Dark Souls III past about the first three. Most of them have multiple forms, wield fire or ice (or both), and are at least three times as large as you (though many are still incredibly fast). It's usually better to wield a weapon two-handed, poke at bosses where you can, and whittle away at them slowly while dodging as many attacks as you can. Bolstering the quantity and quality of your estus flasks will be as necessary as using them at the right time and in the right place.
If you're being nitpicky, you can fault the game for being a bit more linear than other Soulsborne games and discouraging magic builds that will need to pour a lot of points into their related stats in the endgame to be viable. Most players will use magic only to buff their STR/DEX builds instead of attempting to go the pure magic route. (I suppose anything to prevent the notorious Havelmages from DS2.) The framerate frequently takes a hit no matter which platform you're on too, sometimes going down to 20fps, and the camera can get spotty in places when you're next to a wall. Typical Dark Souls issues, really.
And that's the end of my review-in-progress. If I proceed any further, I might as well be writing the full review, which you can expect before the international release date for Dark Souls III in April 12.
