When comparing Lost Sphear vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best RPG games on Steam?” Dark Souls III is ranked 16th while Lost Sphear is ranked 57th. The most important reason people chose Dark Souls III is:
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story. Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you. Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Exciting turn-based battles
Unlike other turn-based RPGs, your party isn't locked into a fixed position during battles, allowing you to move freely around the screen and cast spells from anywhere. Positioning your characters to hit multiple enemies with one attack, or moving to avoid area of effect attacks adds a fun new mobility to turn-based combat.
Each playable character has access to five or six spells that can be used, but they can also be augmented with your choice of secondary effects. The effects vary from extra damage, buffs for your party, debuffs for enemies, and more, but it's entirely up to you which ones to use. Being able to experiment with all the different spell possibilities allows you to mix and match effects to suit your playstyle or play on a character's strength.
Planning when and where to move each unit on the field, as well as what effects to put on each spell, can make for some really exciting battles.
Pro Flexible difficulty
You can change the difficulty level as you play, meaning you won't ever hit roadblocks. For example, if a boss way too hard for you, you can simply swap to easy and then progress.
Pro Mysterious and interesting story
People and places around the world are disappearing, leaving behind blank white spaces where they once stood. A young orphan named Kanata sets out with his friends to unravel the mystery, and discovers he possesses the power to restore the balance by finding lost memories.
The unexplainable disappearances set a great mysterious tone from the start, and this manages to hold up quite well throughout Kanata's journey. While the characters within the story might not be the greatest, the writing itself is well done, the plot moves along at a steady pace, and the strange premise behind everything keeps it extremely interesting for the duration.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
Cons
Con Poor character development
While there are a couple of exceptions, many of the characters don't really develop over time. Their attitudes and personalities when you first meet them never change or evolve. Even with the few characters who are exceptions, their storylines are very predictable and there are no big surprise moments.
Con Linear and boring dungeons
You won't be exploring much in dungeons, as most are a straight path from start to finish. Sometimes you will need to find switches or buttons to unlock gates, but overall it just involves clearing a room of monsters and then moving to the next one.
Con It's too easy to get overpowered
Upgrading your weapons requires items that are cheap and plentiful, so it's all too easy to become overpowered very early on in the game. This removes a lot of the challenge since eventually everything becomes trivial.
Con Very repetitive
The entire game basically revolves around the same formula. Discovering a memory that needs to be restored, hunting down the lost memory by killing a boss, and then restoring it. It never ventures far from this routine, which can get very repetitive over time.
Con Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.