Any discussion of best PS4 games always includes a lot of very loud folks screaming about Bloodborne. What happens, though, when you don't like Bloodborne? Even worse, what if Bloodborne infects other games games you DO like? Well, that's what happened with today's game, Dark Souls III. It's basically Bloodborne. And I don't like it. Read more and watch gameplay here.
Back when Dark Souls III launched I liked it a lot, actually. That was back when I still thought Dark Souls II was the best and I didn't really "get" Dark Souls 1, though. I beat DS3 5-6 times or something like that. I got a review copy several days early so I had to do it all with basically no summoning besides NPCs the first time, and I flew through it with basically no problems (which surprises me because everyone else says DS3 is harder than the others ...).
Even back then, though, I still didn't really love DS3. It just felt a little off to me and I still preferred DS2. Fast forward a few years, and now I'm firmly in the Dark Souls 1 is the best camp. I like that Dark Souls 1 is slow and methodical and you can use a shield because poise is an actual thing in that game. Dark Souls 3 doesn't have poise, so blocking is broken and doesn't work, so you have to dodge instead. I don't like that. I don't want to play that way. Trying to go back and play Dark Souls III, even though I sailed through it before, isn't fun anymore. It isn't how I like to play, but you're forced into it.
The weird thing about the whole "Souls-like" genre is that none of the games actually feel remotely similar to each other with perhaps the exception of Demons's Souls and Dark Souls 1. All of the other games are different. Dark Souls 2 is different. Dark Souls 3 is stupidly fast and totally different. Bloodborne is totally different. The Surge is totally different. Nioh is totally different. Sekiro is completely totally different. Why do we lump these games together, and act like fans of any of them will like the others, when they're all radically different from each other?
In conclusion - I don't like Bloodborne, and as a result, I don't really like Dark Souls III. Also, Souls-like is a dumb genre that doesn't make sense.
