When comparing Battle Chasers: Nightwar 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 Battle Chasers: Nightwar is ranked 68th. 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 Fun battles thanks to overcharge
Using your basic attacks builds up a special charge that allows you unleash devastating attacks, oftentimes being awarded bonus damage based on the charge spent. This charge disappears when combat ends, which encourages you to use it or lose it. This means you can constantly use the most fun and flashy attacks without having to worry about conserving resources for a boss fight or tough enemy. Building up and unleashing brutal attacks in every single fight, no matter how minor, really makes the battles shine.
Pro Satisfying battle animations
While in battle, all your attacks and special abilities are accompanied by fancy and colorful animations, such as the wizard Knolan waving loops of fire around shortly before tossing at the enemy, or Calibretto the giant golem making a huge spectacle of charging up his big guns before firing them. Watching these attacks play out is satisfying due to all this showmanship, and there's an exciting anticipation that comes with watching a big, powerful spell wind up.
Pro Engaging side content helps the world feel alive
Outside of progressing the main story, there are a lot of interesting side activities to take part in that help you feel like you're part of a real world.
Fighting wave after wave of increasingly difficulty enemies in the arena is a great way to put your skills to the test. Seeing how far you can advance in the arena is pretty fun. Certain NPCs also give you the opportunity to go on hunts, where you can track down and kill rare monsters for rewards. These hunts are a great way to get out exploring and find things you normally wouldn't encounter.
If you ever want to take a break from the fighting, there's also crafting and a fishing minigame to partake in.
Pro Exploration is rewarding
There is a large and detailed overworld filled with dungeons, towns, secret bosses, and plenty of hidden treasures. Just exploring and finding all the tucked away secrets in each of the eight regions can be quite enjoyable and extra rewarding when you find a special monster or treasure chest.
Pro Robust and interesting crafting
Almost everything you pick up can be used to craft something. There are recipes, but you are free to experiment and add new reagents to known formulas to create interesting items. Even if you are missing a certain ingredient, you can often substitute a larger quantity of a different one to make up for it. It's a fun side activity for those who like to experiment and get creative with crafting without being locked into strict recipes.
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 Characters feel plain and static
While all the party members are mostly likable, it's hard to become attached to any of them. None of them change in any meaningful way or learn anything over the course of the story. There's not much banter among them as you travel, and they don't ever really seem to form any kind of real bond. Their backstories are never explored in any depth, and none of them have any major problems that need to be resolved. During the entire adventure, they seem to be just "going through the motions" and don't have much enthusiasm or reaction to the world around them.
Con Party system has some glaring issues
Although you can recruit additional characters to your party, you can only have three active at any one time. Only active characters get loot and experience, which makes it clunky and hard to level all your characters equally.
This essentially creates an imbalance in your roster where it feels like you're pigeonholed into using the same three characters for the duration of the game. New characters you pick up along the way never feel like they quite fit into the groove you've built up with the original three.
Con Latter portion of the game starts to flail
Due to the crafting system and easy-to-acquire dungeon loot, it's very easy to steamroll everything in the latter portion of the game. This takes away some excitement from the battles as combat poses no challenge, and it makes the final portion of the game way too easy when it should be harder.
Con Story ends on a cliffhanger
There is no story resolution at the end of your adventure. This can be a major turn off for some, especially people who enjoy a story with closure.
Con Story is generic
The story fails to break out of RPG stereotypes and ends up feeling very plain. You are playing as nine year old Gully and her ragtag crew of misfits when your airship is shot down over a strange land. You soon come to find out this land is under the threat of an evil sorceress who intends to steal all the mana for herself. Your characters never get deeply involved in the story, don't have any struggles of their own that get resolved, and simply seem to just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They then set out to stop her because it's the generic "hero" thing to do. The story never really goes any deeper than that, characters are never fully developed to their full potential, and there are very few side stories.
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.