Only using sword and shield probably explains why you kinda cruised through it, to be honest. That combination feels stronger than it has ever been this time around.

2 handing the biggest sword I can find is how I play these games :D

@efesell: The Pontiff boss fight becomes surprisingly trivial the second you equip a decent shield.

Yeah I've only ever fought him with that build so it was real weird going online to discover what a tremendous roadblock he can be.

There are definitely a few spots where the bonfire placement is kind of baffling for sure, but for the most part I think Dark Souls 3 did a MUCH better job of it than Dark Souls 2.

I greatly prefer it. I don't love the very long runs between points. I don't mind challenge but that's not my favorite part of any of these games.

Part of me is glad that this complaint has been brought up, considering how Dark Souls II also went through the trenches for this. Though on both counts I really could not care less. Boss runs may have been acceptable during the early days of these games, but I'm glad that's not really a factor anymore. I can remember giving up on beating Gwyn for quite a while due to getting so fed up of having to first rush past all of those black knights.

@yummylee: For a final boss, I absolutely agree especially in the case of Demon's and Dark.

Demon's had a long run and a SLOW elevator ride up to the false king. See, I'm of the mind that if the player has reached the final boss, they should be able to just get straight to it right away. They've earned that.

Yeah, longer distances isn't difficulty, it's tedium.

The warp to the first flame gets me. I've just come from a warp to get there so another warp seems needless.

@shindig: My first reaction to that area was that they didn't have time to finish it. It would have been cool to wander around collapsed-Lothric.

At least there's no final Boss run. The run to the princes already felt kinda slow. I would rather dodge a few enemies and get there faster!

@paulmako: Really? The Princes run is probably one of the shortest in my opinion, only one elevator ride up, didn't even have to dodge the knights that are in front of the fog gate.

I think that is a bit of cheating here. There are essentially 2 types of bonfires. One type when you kill a boss and the other in the world on its own. Dragonslayer boss bonfire stays since it is part of the system. Now they could remove the archives ones but what would that do? Just make a pointless run every single time you die without anything on the road, essentially an empty corridor.

I saw concept art for "Mimic Bonfires" - yeah, like the chest mimics but for bonfires O_O Maybe they were in the game at one point, but they ended up just making them all regular bonfires instead?

Pretty sure that was just fan art.

I totally agree. From should've just put a bonfire in the graveyard at the beginning of the game and nowhere else. Am I right?

When you defeat the big ghost bastard there's his, then there's the one before the Irithyll bridge and then there's one after the Irithyll bridge. I thought that was pretty silly.

You're right. I know things like getting to the Deacons took a longer run. I guess it was the way the Dragonslayer Armour bonfire was at the far end of his boss room. It just felt longer to me! But then it's probably because I had a tough time against the Princes so any elevator ride was going to be too long.

There is a spot I believe in Lothric castle where you can spin your camera and have 2 bonfires on screen at the same time. There's some pretty strange placement of them, but I didn't feel like it detracted from my experience at all.

I thought I was the only one who felt the placement was a little strange. When I can see a bonfire from a bonfire, that feels weird.

Now that I've finally finished the game I can confidently say that with a few exceptions Dark Souls 3 has the best bonfire placement out of the three Dark games.

How do you feel about the game overall? I'm coming up on the final hours of the game, myself.

I enjoyed Dark Souls 3 a great deal, the most out of the three in this particular series and I think it's a really good game overall. There is a flow that sucks you in and keeps pushing you forward, one more hour into the late hours of the night, one more bonfire, one more boss... That said it does lean rather heavily on everything that has come before it, including Bloodborne in some areas. Dark Souls 3 is a love letter to the fans in game format. This is a double edged sword because if you are a huge fan of the lore then you will definitely find plenty to enjoy here. If you aren't too huge into the Dark series then it remains a highly enjoyable, but disappointingly iterative experience with a lot of callbacks completely lost on you or simply failing to have their intended impact. A part of my brain still got that endorphin rush from leveling up, finding new gear and conquering new enemies. The other part was a little let down by their decision to lean so heavily on previous experiences instead of making a true sequel that felt new and invigorating. Dark Souls 3 is all too familiar in more ways than it's not, which works against the mystique this series has worked so hard to build.

There is good boss variety with a nice mix of challenging and cakewalk - and every once in a while it's fun to walk right over a boss when another has been giving you grief. The level design is likewise a good step up from some of the more abysmal locations found in the second half of Dark Souls 1 and the general lack of flair that Dark Souls 2 suffered from. Plenty of moments where you walk through a doorway or exit a passage and just stand there gawking at the scenery. This is also the first Souls game I've played that didn't feel like they ran out of ideas or time when designing the second half of the game. It feels complete in a way that Dark Souls 1 absolutely didn't.

What I didn't like was the general samey-ness of the entire experience when looked at the Souls franchise as a whole. It's the same weapon movesets we've seen since Demon's Souls, it's the same leveling mechanics, the same attack patterns. Hardly any new ideas make it into this full fledged sequel to the point where it doesn't even feel like this is Dark Souls 3 but more like an Epilogue game or an incredibly built out DLC package. What new stuff there is, like the "power moves" is something that can easily be ignored for the entire playthrough, as I had done (although mostly because the weapon I was using simply didn't have a useful skill for me to engage).

Overall I liked it a lot. Samey or not, it's still a Souls game and that is still something unique in the gaming world that you won't find anywhere else. The ending was as laughable as ever, with a 30 hour journey concluding with a 20 second clip, but fortunately this is definitely a case for the journey being much more important than the destination.

Lol yeah, that's how the human brain works :-|

And maybe they should fill all games with big red buttons saying "Do not push"?

What bugged me was how most bonfires pointed you to the next area when you respawned, but when you later activated a shortcut/found a boss from the direction you originally came in, you had to re-position yourself everytime you spawned there. Don't ask me why that bothered me, it's just one of those little nitpicky things.

There are specific areas I'd say have bad bonfire placement (not to mention it looks pretty silly any time you have a second bonfire just after a boss), but I think that's more reflective of the design philosophy behind specific areas. Dark Souls 2 was worse in this regard. Like, there's an extra bonfire in the Road of Sacrifices just before Farron Keep that feels pointless. I also tend to hate bonfires placed too close to nearby enemies (see: the bonfire in Sinner's Rise in Dark Souls 2, the second bonfire in Farron Keep in Dark Souls 3). But I didn't find there to be an overall problem with the game's bonfires. I tend to like levels like Irithyl Dungeon and the Grand Archives which have central bonfires you keep finding shortcuts back to. There tends to be a correlation towards levels featuring this design generally having more thought and care behind them.

I don't think Demon's Souls is a great example of a model the rest of the series should follow though. I mean there were some great levels in that game like 3-1, but there were also levels like 4-2 completely lacking in any shortcuts for no real reason. And long boss runs aren't necessarily for the better. See: The bleeping run to the Executioner's Chariot in Dark Souls 2 as exhibits A through Z for this.

Okay, I have to say something here. People give Miyazaki waaaaaay too much credit. His name is on DSII. He was semi-responsible for a lot of DSII's features that people hated. The 'more bonfires' was an internal choice to make the game less unforgiving and a decision that Miyazaki was in on and advised for. After the negative feedback, he tried to split the difference in Bloodborne. Which also failed sometimes as Lanterns were sometimes 1 enemy encounter removed from each other.

Miyazaki may be the father, but he is not the God of Souls games. He makes bad decisions too.

@zevvion: Yea, I love Miyazaki but he did not come up with every aspect in a singular, masterful vision. There's a ton of other designers making it all happen. As I recall the director from Dark Souls 2 was heavily involved in Old Hunters, and I adore that just as much as (or maybe more than) the entirety of Dark Souls 3. It's like people have forgotten it's a studio and not a one man band. I still think Miyazaki brings a standard of quality to everything he oversees, and adds a certain kind of vibe by including the things he enjoys (dragons in level 1, etc.) which is really endearing, but I definitely think people should stop overlooking the other talent at From.

@claybrez: Not to mention Dark Souls II's DLC is (perhaps still?) the best Souls content out there. That was almost zero Miyazaki who was heavily involved with Bloodborne at that point. Also, don't forget Bloodborne is full on Miyazaki. The easier difficulty, the lack of build variety, the forced playstyle... that was him too. And it turned out to be the weakest game in the franchise regarded by fans.

Not to sound negative. He's great. Even his worst game is better than most. But he's not all that people think.

@zevvion: Well, I don't think Bloodborne is the weakest, but I absolutely get what you're saying. He can sometimes be responsible for aspects we all pretty much don't like, and the build variety problem in Bloodborne is a great example of that. He's not exclusively responsible for just the good stuff, he's actually human and capable of making unpopular choices. I mean, the guy did get his start by making one of the most niche games ever.