5/5 ★ – Lammy's review of Dark Souls III: The Fire Fades Edition.

Dark Souls 3 post-Usurpation of Fire review: Ash, as they say, seeketh embers. Dark Souls 3 is... the third Dark Souls game, IDK what you want me to say. The First Flame continues to fade, and the most recently appointed Lord has shirked his duty, so a failsafe activates. The Ashen One, an Unkindled former champion who tried and failed to link the Flame, is resurrected along with several Lords of Cinder, and is tasked with defeating them and using their power to do their duty in their stead. The game world in this is twisted and wrong, as though the planet itself has been warped by the repeated cycles of Fire and Dark, and time and space are coming apart at the seams. Combat is standard Souls combat, though notably speedier than in Dark Souls 1 or 2. It's not Bloodborne fast, but it's close. New to the series are Weapon Arts special skills tied to each weapon that I never really used; who needs finesse when you have an Ultra Greatsword? I don't think the game is as difficult as Bloodborne overall, though Nameless King does give the Orphan of Kos from the Old Hunters a run for his money. The two DLC packs, Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City, tell an interesting story of the creation of a new Painted World and serve as a fitting conclusion to the Dark Souls trilogy, with some of the best bosses in the series in these packs (though the actual Ringed City areas frustrate me to no end). This is a stellar end to the Dark Souls narrative, and also an end of an era of games; Hidetaka Miyazaki's next games would leave behind some or all of the blueprint left behind by Demon's Souls and refined until this point to try new ideas and variations. So let's say farewell to the "classic" Soulsborne series for now, and allow the fire to fade. 10/10