When comparing Marvel's Spider-Man vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Marvel's Spider-Man for most people. In the question“What are the best single player games on PS4?” Marvel's Spider-Man is ranked 36th while Dark Souls III is ranked 50th. The most important reason people chose Marvel's Spider-Man is:
Traversing across buildings with Spider-Man's web-slinging ability is thrilling. Zipping across town from quest marker to quest marker is quick and convenient: with simple aiming and button presses, you aim your web at the top corner of a skyscraper, for example, and then you swing through other buildings and across the busy streets to get there. Keeping up this momentum lets you get from one place to another in record time. The rumble feature and the rattling camera effects from your boots in speed give you the perfect amount of feedback to help you feel like you're really in Spider-Man's shoes. It's so fun that you might find yourself swinging from place to place for no reason, just to have that thrill.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Swinging around Manhattan as Spider-Man is tons of fun
Traversing across buildings with Spider-Man's web-slinging ability is thrilling. Zipping across town from quest marker to quest marker is quick and convenient: with simple aiming and button presses, you aim your web at the top corner of a skyscraper, for example, and then you swing through other buildings and across the busy streets to get there. Keeping up this momentum lets you get from one place to another in record time. The rumble feature and the rattling camera effects from your boots in speed give you the perfect amount of feedback to help you feel like you're really in Spider-Man's shoes. It's so fun that you might find yourself swinging from place to place for no reason, just to have that thrill.
Pro Interesting story that shows the human side of Spider-Man's life
The game's story is pretty impactful, showing what happens behind-the-scenes in Spider-Man's life outside of his positive and optimistic superhero persona. While you do get to see plenty of his typical silly snarks as with his mask on, what happens when he's just Peter with his friends is equally as interesting, if not more so. You get to watch as he gets to know other side characters in New York City, like his friends and his eventual enemies, all of whom work either with him or against him. Everyone has their own fleshed out, personal struggles, showcasing the actual people who both help and fight Spider-Man in his goals to save the city from the villains who come up throughout the 15-20 hour story.
It's a surprisingly riveting plot that goes much deeper than the comics and movies, and it's absolutely worth experiencing for both Spider-Man fans as well as players getting to know him for the first time.
Pro Strategic and engaging hand-to-hand combat
Fighting against goons on the ground is a solid experience that keeps your attention for the most part. Since Spider-Man can't take many hits before going down, that's all the more reason to keep an eye on exactly which buttons you press. Chaining combos is your best bet, rewarding you with fancy and flashy acrobatics that are great to watch as well as a good deal of invincibility as you take down one bad guy after another. Boss battles are great too, with lots of excellent cinematic fights that really do a great job of showing off the whole city with their setpieces.
When you're overwhelmed in battle, you can make use of Spider-Man's nifty gadgets to help you out, like a drone you can use to get rid of anyone who's giving you too much of a hard time. Once you get the hang of using combos and gadgets to your advantage, things can get a little repetitive, but you can always up the difficulty if you're looking for more of a challenge.
Pro Impressive visuals
Spider-Man is a really great-looking game. The skyscrapers across Manhattan in New York City gleam in the sunlight and moonlight, the streets are densely packed with shining cars and busy civilians, and the character models are all realistic enough to believe. Swinging around the city with Spider-Man's web is even more fluid with the way the camera zooms in and out to show you a full vantage point of the city, filled with tons of details that make you feel like you have a real bird's-eye view of the area. Everything has an incredible amount of polish and doesn't get old to look at.
Pro Great game, based on Marvel Universe
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 Weak side content
Aside from some fun time trial challenges, most of the side quests and other optional content are pretty boring and repetitive. Many of them are standard quests, like going to fetch pigeons or beating up random enemies. They don't feel anywhere near as engaging as the main story, either. With how standard and procedural they are, they're just there to fill up space and let you earn some rewards to customize Spider-Man's outfit with. Not to mention, it's jarring going from the tense and important story missions to these throwaway side quests, like you're wasting 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.