Dark Souls III - Ringed City Review

CGM has reviewed Dark Souls III - Ringed City:

Dark Souls III: The Ringed City Review - A Punishing Finale

With The Ringed City, we are receiving the final adventure in the Dark Souls series. Talk about an end of an era. The franchise’s’ unique gameplay has essentially created its own sub-genre of action RPGs, with games like Nioh wearing the influence proudly. However, nothing quite feels like a Dark Souls game, and The Ringed City DLC is about as quintessential as it gets in most respects, but strangely lacking and unfamiliar in others. This is both a good and a bad thing, in a way. Fans of the series’ famous boss fights and notorious difficulty are sure to be delighted but those players looking for the labyrinthine, interconnected world design or some answers to the questions raised over the series’ three major entries will be left wanting.

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All in all, The Ringed City is a bit of a mixed bag. The levels are gorgeous, great throwbacks to the rest of the series, but feel way too linear and rushed—especially in some sections. The cryptic and ambiguous storytelling the series is famed for is there, but not in any capacity that feels fitting for the end of such an epic tale. The enemies are tough as hell, and the boss fights are fantastic, but are weighed down by irritating sections and gameplay mechanics that don’t jive with the series. The new weapons are great, depending on your build, but plenty of the new sets are radical and Fashion Souls players should be pretty stoked.

Score: 7/10

The Ringed City is a fantastically punishing finale for the Dark Souls saga, but is held back by linear level design and an underwhelming story.