When comparing Attack on Titan 2 vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Attack on Titan 2 for most people. In the question“What are the best co-op games for PS4?” Attack on Titan 2 is ranked 30th while Dark Souls III is ranked 35th. The most important reason people chose Attack on Titan 2 is:
You can swap and lock onto targets at will. Even though you'll be wildly attacking and zipping around the air in aerial acrobatics, control of where your attacks will land is easy to maintain. Whether you're attacking the arms, legs, or head of the massive Titans, you'll be able to lock on to your chosen body part. This locking allows you to focus your damage with precision and control, resulting in smooth and refined combat.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Control is easy to maintain during combat thanks to target locking
You can swap and lock onto targets at will. Even though you'll be wildly attacking and zipping around the air in aerial acrobatics, control of where your attacks will land is easy to maintain. Whether you're attacking the arms, legs, or head of the massive Titans, you'll be able to lock on to your chosen body part. This locking allows you to focus your damage with precision and control, resulting in smooth and refined combat.
Pro Incredibly fun aerial combat
The combat has a satisfying feel to it that never grows stale, so even after the long campaign, it still feels fresh. It's fast paced, fun, and zipping through the air never loses its appeal.
Just like in the anime, you wear a jetpack type item called the ODM (Omni-Directional Mobility). It's what you'll be using to perform aerial maneuvers and fling yourself across levels. It makes you move incredibly quickly, so the combat has a very fast paced feel to it.
Once you've got a Titan in your sights, you can lock onto 1 of 5 attack points on it's body such as the arms or legs. Using the ODM, you'll send out hooks that latch on to your target as you launch yourself into the air.
From there, you can bounce around, almost like a bungee cord, between the open air and your target as you time your weapon strikes for maximum damage. You can also swap targets midair, such as going for an instant kill neck hit. This results in some impressive aerial combat.
Pro Using bases on the map, you can customize a unique strategy for your playstyle
Deciding what base to build is up to you, with each providing it's own benefit. This leaves a lot of room open for your own personal playstyle and strategy based on the battle at hand. Bases can be used for offense, defense, or supply generation. For example, if you find you're always running low on blades and gas, you could put up a Supply Base to give you a steady stream of resources. Other bases include cannons and turrets which can be used to provide cover or attack the Titans from long range.
Pro Sneak attacks are a fun risk/reward stealth mechanic
Choosing whether or not to unleash a sneak attack before the Titans notice you can be great fun when you pull it off, but downright hazardous when you mess up. It's a risk/reward system that allows for some rather interesting stealth strategy in an otherwise action-heavy game. Sneak attacks allow you to instantly kill or severely wound a Titan (provided they haven't seen you yet). However, if you mess up or botch the attack, the Titan will become instantly enraged. This makes them stronger and incredibly dangerous to fight.
Pro There's a secret ending that's not in the anime, which puts a new spin on the story
There's a secret, special ending for gamers that's different from the ending in the season 2 anime. Even if you've seen the anime, you'll still have the opportunity to see the story conclude in a new way.
Pro The unique opportunity to fight alongside characters from the show and manga
You can recruit characters from the show and manga to help you in combat. While you can't control them directly, having them in your group allows to you unleash powerful combat buffs on-demand such as attack power increases and one shot kills. This provides a fun aspect to gameplay where you feel like you're engaged in fighting the Titans alongside well-known characters from the anime without having to micromanage too many things. At the same time, you'll still be getting all the benefits and excitement of playing with a group of anime heroes.
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 The friendship system and skill unlocking is extremely one-dimensional
Skills are unlocked by forming friendships with other characters. Choosing the "wrong" dialogue option during interactions prevents you from building this reputation, thus locking you out of certain skills. For example, if an NPC is bragging about how awesome he is, you either have to agree to appease him or else you'll lose out on valuable combat skills.
Con Your main playable character feels like a secondary thought rather than the main focus
You are nothing more than a trainee that lives to serve the other characters. When interacting with them, there's no consistency in the dialogue options. Nor is there anything to denote your character has any kind of unique personality at all. It's hard to form an attachment or become invested to your character when you're just a "Yes Man" for the NPCs if you want to learn combat skills.
Con Story mode has a lot of repeated content from the first game
Majority of the story mode in Attack on Titan 2 is simply a retelling of the first game. This is perfectly fine for people new to the series, but if you've played the first game, prepare to see hours of the exact same cut scenes and boss fights before you get to the new stuff.
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.