Love

• Refined Game Engine – As groundbreaking as the Souls games are, they have always been incredibly janky and take some time to get used to how clunky they can be (not to mention the extremely poor performance that the first two games had across multiple platforms). Dark Souls 3 is built off of the Bloodborne engine and thankfully no longer has these issues. The game looks gorgeous and runs at a pretty stable 30fps on consoles. While 60fps would probably be ideal for a fast-paced action game, 30fps would have been a pipe dream for earlier games in the series, so I’ll take what I can get at least.
• Increased Combat and Game Speed – Dark Souls 3 takes some pages from Bloodborne in its design, one of which is the noticeably increased speed of the combat and enemy aggression. Your reflexes are certainly put to the test more often and it also helps that the game’s animations have been made are far more fluid and responsive. As a result, simply playing Dark Souls 3 feels better than it has in previous entries in the series.
• The Bosses Are Better Than Ever – I would go out on a limb and say that Dark Souls 3 has the best-designed bosses in the entire franchise. This is because basically every boss now has multiple stages when their health bars reach a certain point, meaning that you are no longer stuck repeating the same patterns to defeat a boss throughout the entire fight. Naturally, this makes the bosses harder, but I find them so much funner and satisfying, and it really makes the bosses in the previous games feel less challenging as a result. Particular highlights include The Abyss Watchers, Dancer of the Boreal Valley, the Twin Princes of Lothric, The Nameless King, The Demon in Pain and the Demon From Below (funnest gank fight since Ornstein & Smough in my opinion) and especially Slave Knight Gael (the funnest, most epic fight in all of Souls, hands-down).
• The Game World is Hauntingly Gorgeous – Dark Souls 3‘s story is one of a world that is dying because the flame can no longer be sustained and the age of dark must finally come to pass. The game world really conveys this well, with some really well designed areas and imagery, such as the scores of dead pilgrims who collapsed from exhaustion outside the high wall of Lothric, the familiar characters you find long dead on our journey (the giant blacksmith was bad enough, but no, how could you kill The Fair Lady too?!), to the evocative image of the dark sun in the game’s final areas.

Mixed

• Weapon Arts – Other than the increased game speed, Dark Souls 3‘s biggest addition to the combat system is weapon arts, special abilities or attacks that each weapon can perform. It’s a pretty cool idea, but one which could have probably been implemented a little better as the arts are generally the same across each class of weapon, only really changing on some special weapons.
• Nostalgia Reliance – I didn’t mind this too much myself, but it’s undeniable that Dark Souls 3 relies on nostalgia for the original Dark Souls throughout the game. From the numerous callbacks to characters and items, to the areas which are revisited (most notably Anor Londo). Some of this game’s “original” characters are also just straight rip-offs of previous characters, such as Siegward of Catarina, which just takes away from this game’s own identity and contribution to the franchise. Furthermore, Dark Souls 2 kind of gets the shaft, with only a few items and equipment sets carrying over, a handful of characters and one area is referenced (Earthen Peak, in the DLC). The story doesn’t even acknowledge Dark Souls 2 at all, which is somewhat surprising considering that that game was about overcoming the undead curse. It definitely would have been nice if the game had been a bit more equitable about calling back to both of its predecessors.

Hate

• Disregards Dark Souls 2‘s Game Improvements – …and speaking of ignoring Dark Souls 2, while some elements from that game certainly didn’t need to carry over (eg, life gems, limited enemy spawns, etc), there were certainly some improvements which didn’t make their way to Dark Souls 3 for whatever reason. Dual wielding in power stance is probably the most obvious omission, and while you can dual wield some special weapons using weapon arts, it isn’t nearly as effective or viable. Bonfire aesthetics are also a very sorely missed feature, meaning that you have to replay the whole game once again if you want to replay a section. Even mixed-up NG+ enemy placements have been removed.
• Linearity – Linearity is not a bad thing in itself, but in a Souls game it is incredibly disappointing to see, especially considering how interconnected the first game was. Dark Souls 3 is by far the most linear game in the series, offering only a few short, branching paths on the journey (the most significant of which is incredibly difficult to achieve, requiring the player to beat a mid-game boss who can easily one-shot them at the very start of the game). As a result, replays will almost always have more or less the same progression each time.
• PVP Is Weak – I’m not really into the PVP scene in Souls games, but apparently Dark Souls 3‘s system is the worst in the series. This is, in part, due to more limited build variety (for example, spell casters are less viable because spells have been weakened overall and require multiple ring slots to make their damage output comparable to other builds). In addition, PVP in this game is a total gankfest. This is actually something I’ve witnessed even without being into the PVP, because invaders will often end up facing off against 1-4 defenders and be destroyed instantly.
• Some of the Bosses Still Suck – For all of the boss improvements in Dark Souls 3, there are still quite a few bosses which are pretty bad. Deacons of the Deep is the lamest boss in the base game, only really being difficult if you don’t have a lot of magic defence investment to survive a cheap one-shot. Meanwhile, the Ancient Wyvern is basically an over-glorified set-piece that can be cheesed instantly if you know what you’re doing. Oddly enough, Dark Souls 3 also has the distinction of having the most inconsistent DLC bosses in the series. The Ashes of Ariandel DLC’s bosses are both amongst the worst bosses in the game. The Champion’s Gravetender and Gravetender Greatwolf don’t even feel like a boss fight and is just plain unfair if you can’t kill the Gravetender before the Greatwolf spawns. Meanwhile, Sister Friede is the dirtiest, most unfair boss fight in the entire franchise: her first phase is fun, but then in the second phase she gets a whole new health bar and you get ganked alongside a raging Father Ariandel. If you somehow manage to beat them in this phase, THEN Sister Friede gets resurrected with another full health bar and is even more deadly than in either previous phase. She’s also super fast, debatably too fast even for this game’s increased combat speed. This was by far the least-enjoyable boss in the entire game for me, and while I generally play these games without summoning, I had absolutely no illusions about completing this fight summon-free. Meanwhile, in The Ringed City DLC, Halflight, Spear of the Church is arguably the most boring boss in the entire game.