I actually really enjoyed this

>play dark souls 3 through a few times, log about 100ish hours
>don't really enjoy it that much as 1 or 2 but still decently fun
>purposefully avoid buying the dlc because i didnt like the base game enough
>bored and have free time after thanksgiving shit today
>buy dlc on a whim
>actually really like it

This dlc gets a lot of shit around here and it certainly is deserving of its criticism. But the level design is fantastic and the environment looks really beautiful. The massive scale of the level is something that was sorely missing from dks2 and 3 imo. The sheer verticality of the mountain and ice canyon place is awesome.

I still haven't gotten to Friede yet since I just entered the Corvian settlement. The way the environment darkens when you come down from the mountain into the settlement is a really nice touch. And fighting your way through all the dying corvians in the sewage ditch is cool as fuck

What do yall think? I think its criticism are well earned. The first boss was very lackluster and the dlc is overall very short. I think its very atmospheric and easily the best level in the game though.

Other urls found in this thread:

gamerant.com/dark-souls-3-incomplete/
youtube.com/watch?v=J4KjLWUZkbU
youtube.com/watch?v=n6vOSWDgnD0
darksouls.wikia.com/wiki/Undead_King_Jar-Eel
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

I think the whole DaS3 experience was a downgrade from Bloodborne, but what can you expect when you go from 'Magnum Opus' to 'Magnum to the Temple this is so bad'?

People mainly complain about the price/content ratio, which I think it's valid criticism. I bought the Deluxe edition for $40 so I really can't (and don't) complain.

The Champion's Gravetender boss fight was disappointing in terms of difficulty, but the arena was beautiful, music was great, and the theme/lore itself was consistent with the new pvp content. It's not terrible, it's just average imo. Also, the Friede fight more than makes up for it.

I love snow levels in video games, it's like the equivalent of resting by a fireplace at winter; everything around you is cold but you're so cozy.

Certainly. As someone who has beaten all 5 'souls' games, Bloodborne is far and away my favorite. It may actually be my favorite game of all time. For me dark souls 3 was a large step down after the old hunters.
And yea the pricepoint is an issue for me too. I was bored but they had a 10% discount on psn so it was worth it to me. I play all these games multiple times so I consider a dlc to be a longterm investment

I'm on board with OP but just also want to point out that all the new weapons are fun as fuck, I've had a lovely time invading with the dual crow claws even if I suck at it.

I thought it was very short(very easy like the base game even at ng+5), had nothing interesting and was not very fun.

I suppose it can seem a little "sparse" but the new weapons themselves are essentially half the dlc's worth. I figured that even if it sucked I'd at least get to fuck around with friede's scythe. But the environment is amazing imo. I like getting lost in games and the dlc environ is overall beautiful

Thinking of picking up this and OH, probably my biggest issue with BB and DaS3 is weapon variety being very limited, does the DLC fix this in 3?

all the weapons they add feel pretty unique

Why is the doll using a chikage? She'd better put down the weapon before she hurts herself

Every weapon in the DLC has a rehashed moveset with the exception of WAs and 2handing, which itself only has 2-3 new moves.

The amount of content is just fucking ass. No new consumables, the new weapons are basically just new weapon arts than actual new weapons, 1 new ring that is completely fucking useless because frostbite doesn't do shit to begin with and even if it did, nobody would waste a ring slot for some extra frostbite resistance. The spells are all fucking terrible, the new miracle is completely ass, the frostbite cloud is a generic ass cloud spell but with frostbite, frost weapon is a generic buff that is completely useless because it can't even be applied on weapons that would actually benefit from it like the Irhythill sword. The new pyromancy is okay, I guess. 3Friede was a pretty good boss, but the wolf/dude is such a rehash that it's absolutely pathetic especially considering it's one of only 2 fucking bosses in the DLC. And of course, it resorts to Dark Soul 1 dicksucking again with the Artorias grave throwback.

She's a closet weeb

They aren't bad in co-op if you hollow them out and have a dex/luck build. You can pretty much gang rape Friede into a corner if another person has them too.

too bad it was so fucking short
that scythe is pure sex though

The area is certainly nice but the short length, low amount of content, introduction of some really fucking stupid enemies (looking at you DKS2 infinite stamina mace wielding fucks), as well as one terrible boss and one mediocre at best boss doesn't really make the game much better than what it was before. As it is, it's still worse than Bloodborne, and hopefully the second DLC will make it as good, but I doubt it will.

I find some weapons to be very unique, and some to just be unique variations of existing weapons. The millwood battle axe, greatbow, hammer, and greataxe as well as the crow quills/ talons and obsidian greatsword to just be either unique improvements on existing weapons or just a better version.
The crow talons and quills do have some pretty cool unique animations though. The running and rolling/combo attacks of both are cool. Then of course there's friede's scythe which is the real winner wep imo.
Overall I'd classify em as just fun rather than build defining. Build variety is virtually unaffected though there's some good dex weapons

It's good, but I would wait for the special edition before buying Dark Souls 3 so you have the complete experience

Yea i already owned the ps4 version. I'm gonna wait for the full version when i eventually make a pc

In general. I'd say im pretty into 'atmosphere' in games and I think this dlc has a lot of that. Thats probably why im still partial too it. Also the main game was just stale as fuck for me so I'm glad to have another area to play in

people are saying that the other DLC is going to be New Londo / Londor so we can only hope for the best

Ashes of Ariandel was great, but way too short. My only complaint against it.

It there had been maybe even 1 boss more to it with an additional stretch of area to fight through, it would've added a lot more to it.

The chakra miracle was also weak as piss and absolutely useless, which is a shame, it was a cool as fuck miracle.

Hoping the next DLC will redeem the game by being way longer with more content.

3 wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It made no sense for it to be a visual downgrade from BB, which looked great. Even design-wise, some of DaS3's areas just felt so dull. Linearity also hurt a lot. BB had some cool connected areas and shortcuts, but then DaS3 went back to being linear as fuck.

I still enjoy playing it often, but dammit. I feel like there was so much lost potential for this game following how great BB was. Felt like after BB they just burned out and half-assed DaS3.

rushed development. they were working on bloodborne for 3 years.

gamerant.com/dark-souls-3-incomplete/

My chief complaint as well. Bloodborne was such a stunningly beautiful game and cosmic horror is my favorite genre of fiction. The level design was fantastic and I love the dlc The only thing I didn't like about bloodborne at the start was that I just wanted more of it and with the dlc I got that. I feel like its a bit of the same thing with ashes of ariandel but theres just too little of it

>DS3 rushed

It's crazy when you think about it, how chaotic Dark Souls development has been entirely through it's lifetime across all 3 titles.

>1 was rushed and falls off heavily after obtaining the Lord Vessel
>bunch of cut character arcs, like Artorias, along with having voiced dialogue
>2 was canceled due to having a bad director, and then stitched back together in a year by a new director, salvaging what they possibly could, and building around the remaining chunks
>3 also rushed
>also just remembered the bit about Gundyr originally being designed as a call back to Dorian, and originally being in Ocerius' room, hence the "Consumed King's Garden", as Gundyr was consumed by that black shit, with the patrolling black shits outside his arena
>the obvious toning down of a few areas, like Highwall and the Kiln, when compared to their leaked screenshot versions

nice source cunt
and great clickbait title

>Hidetaka Miyazaki first is asked if there are any remaining items or large secrets to be discovered within Dark Souls, a game in which players are still searching for hints or clues. He, rather straightforwardly, states that no, “there aren’t any undiscovered items, or specific bits of gameplay.” It’s this thought that leads him to the idea of whether Dark Souls as a whole can be considered “completed” by its players.

>“… Dark Souls is in some ways an incomplete game, and I like to think that it has been completed by players, by their discoveries, as they moved along. I’d love to say that the nature of this incompleteness was completely deliberate, but it is both deliberate and by accident, in different ways.”
>“I am conscious of that when I make these games: I try to make a game that has beautiful open spaces, gaps, room for players to enjoy it in ways that were not authored. I never want it to be where you have to follow the rules completely, where you have to do things exactly as the designers intended. I like to think that this way of creating – leaving spaces – is satisfying. So if there are incomplete aspects of Dark Souls III, please forgive us.”

Agreed. I also still wish BB would come to PC. I can play it on my PS4 of course, but nothing beats being able to play it at crisp 1080p at 60fps.

I honestly didn't realize BB was my favorite and till I looked at my characters the other day and noticed I had 350+ hours across all my characters.

Dark Souls 1 was just unpolished. Nothing quite like the other two.

>>also just remembered the bit about Gundyr originally being designed as a call back to Dorian, and originally being in Ocerius' room, hence the "Consumed King's Garden", as Gundyr was consumed by that black shit, with the patrolling black shits outside his arena

Holy fuck i also remember this. Initial alpha screen shots of the game had gundyr in ocerios's room and the room was full of translucent swords in the ground or something

also just remembered the bit about Gundyr originally being designed as a call back to Dorian, and originally being in Ocerius' room, hence the "Consumed King's Garden", as Gundyr was consumed by that black shit, with the patrolling black shits outside his arena


This makes so much more sense compared to what we got

Couldnt agree more. It's a fantastic title and I wish it was available on all platforms. The help from studio japan and sony was invaluable, but I still wish everyone could play it

I guess they did it because perhaps Ocerius' originally boss arena was scrapped, and they had to squeeze him in someplace to make sense of Path of the Dragon in order to reach Dragon peak I suppose.

May as well make Iudex Gundyr the tutorial boss, then dark Gundyr a hidden boss.

>tfw you made the flail instead
I didnt realize you could make the scythe with the soul
I fucked up

...

If everyone wanted to play it, they'd just buy a PS4 Pro and PSN subscription

Its my most played next to Dark souls 1. Dks1 was my first souls title and it consumed me for over an entire year. BB and Dks1 both achieve the same level of game design imo its just the multiplayer aspect of BB was severely limited for a few reasons

Man thats kick ass

In retrospect, that room is really god damn tight for a fight like Gundyr, especially if he were to have his dark moveset, but it probably would not have had all the debris everywhere that was placed for Ocerius.

Memeing aside, I havent renewed my PS+ in like 6 months and i still play the game's PvE. I played the first dark souls offline my first playthrough and it made me enjoy the PvE a lot more

Yeah but I think you could still effectively avoid his moves, your space is just more limited. I feel like the original Gundyr design was the one that ended up in the tutorial area, with the ninja one being designed post-placement knowing the player had ample room to avoid the charges / throws.

Feel like I'm one of the few people on Sup Forums that really just did't enjoy BB as much as the other souls games. Idk if it's the small amount of spells, the chalice dungeons, or the gem system for weapons.

youtube.com/watch?v=J4KjLWUZkbU

>BB with reshades to make areas a bit more darker and pop the colors slightly more

Muh diiiick

The ugly artstyle was part of the experience!

Basically same to everything you said except I enjoyed the pvp in BB better.
It just felt a lot more fast paced to me, as opposed to some fag trying to circle you the whole fight trying to get lucky

youtube.com/watch?v=n6vOSWDgnD0

Goddamnit, Fromsoft.

This. I built a pretty decent rig 2 months ago and have no desire to touch my PS4 anymore.
But my itch to hunt is coming back.

Shit was annoying as fuck in DS1. Every tiem some fucker invaded me with the gold tracer, i just cheesed them.

I also felt that the DLC was more cohesive to the DS world than the rest of the game was. This doesn't make DS3 a good game though.

Ashes was the worst dlc they've done. I thought I hated Loyce the most but Ashes managed to top it with just how fucking disappointing in was in general. Painted World was my favorite area in DaS1 and this felt like a rather shit reference to it. May have well just been an entirely different area.

>May have well just been an entirely different area.
that's because it is you thundertwat

It's because they tried to adapt too much from what they learned about combat in Bloodborne rather than improving what was good about Souls.

The whole game plays like a watered down BB as opposed to a sequel to Dark Souls 1 or 2.

It's all too quick. Shields are too ineffective. Stamina management is too easy. Most R1s are too easy to spam. You've got near infinite healing and the only real threat is getting run over by an aggressive enemy as opposed to running out of resources.

Dead Settlement felt straight out of Bloodborne, including the testicle tree boss

Thats a fair opinion. I can really see why strict fans of dark souls wouldnt like BB. I like it because it expanded on the gameplay I loved dark souls 1 while still being entirely original in its own right

>just unpolished

Demon Ruins, Lost Izalith, and New Londo disagree. There's a lot of shit left on the cutting room floor or completely unfinished.

Pretty much my entire beef with Ds3.

>New Londo
Even though there was content cut from that area it never felt unfinished to me

Level design is neat, but enemy placement is just lazy. 80% of the areas are just open space with loads of mediocre enemies.
Friede is an interesting boss, at least.

Remember how it was originally going to be a Dark Souls 1 style connected world and you were going to be able to create your own bonfires?

It makes some shortcuts, like the one between crucifixion woods and keep, makes sense.

>Demon Ruins, Lost Izalith,
these are the two biggest most unpolished areas in the game. Theres nothing but items at the end of each of these areas and you fight the boss in the beginning. The ONLY reason to go down here is for completing anri''s quest and getting the 2 flask shards and a bone shard

This is how I feel about it. At first Bloodborne seems like a game where you can have different builds but in reality it's all about speed and agility. The problem is DS3 is the same when in previous souls games build variety was viable.

I believe a boss was cut who would test you before letting you fight the four kings, but they scrapped him because it was a bad idea

darksouls.wikia.com/wiki/Undead_King_Jar-Eel

>Work from the Dark Souls community has revealed that, when Jar-Eel was removed from the game, the developers had implemented a slightly modified version of the moveset of Old King Allant from Demon's Souls. As a result, through modifying the game files through third-party programs, it is possible for the player to fight Jar-Eel instead of a boss encountered normally. Jar-Eel wields both a unique Curved Greatsword, which is unavailable to the player, and a Dark Hand, however, in addition to sharing the voice of Old King Allant from Demon's Souls, his attacks with the Dark Hand could also steal soul levels.