When comparing Company of Heroes 2 vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” Dark Souls III is ranked 70th while Company of Heroes 2 is ranked 118th. 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 Great multiplayer
The multiplayer of the game tends to be where the majority of the core experience fun can be seen. With the ability to fight both AI and human adversaries, you command large armies, positioning them in cover and strategic choke points, with the main goal overtaking key economic points to give yourself a military edge. The included Multi-Player contains a plethora of competitive maps, as well as a section of Co-Op maps that are similar to the campaign mode (though not as plentiful).
Pro Focuses more on smart planning rather than brute force
Company of Heroes 2 is an RTS that focuses more on smart decision making of micro-unit control over macro-control and actions per minute. Players will most likely have fewer units under their command during the beginning of each match, making strategic and tactical placement of each unit necessary, rather than focusing on training many units and attacking head-on. This allows for more deep strategic gameplay to take front and center, as players will need to think aggressively and quickly, keeping units in cover and finding defensible positions, as the loss of even a single unit can turn the tide of a battle.
Pro Top of its class in graphics for an Real-Time Strategy title
While not a huge improvement over the first game in the series, the graphics and art style found in Company of Heroes 2 are still quite astounding for an RTS. The animation quality of each unit is incredibly well polished, with infantry moving with fluid realism, and vehicle movement being heavy and slow. Also, to give an added depth of realism, particle effects and quality are nearly unrivaled, as each mortar blast and each grenade detonation casts large chunks of earth into the air in a billowing cascade of terrain destruction, leaving large craters in the ground. Adding greatly to this is the equally gratifying smoke and spark effects one can see when a tank fires a round from its gun, or when bullets ricochet off armored vehicles. While the gameplay in COH2 is second-to-none, the great graphical fidelity adds an immersive aspect that has yet to be matched.
Pro Control large amount of units
Upped from the original game the player is able to control up to 135 units, which is quite a lot of micromanagement for those that are interested.
Pro Tons of replayability thanks to Downloadable Content
While DLC has the potential to introduce imbalance, with purchased items that give advantage, so far Company of Heroes 2 has not had this issue. New campaigns, featuring other allied nations, as well as different commanders with their own powerful abilities are proudly highlighted through this additional content. This allows the player base to have more to do and see, added increased longevity into an already brilliant addition to the Company of Heroes franchise.
Pro Mod support
User Created Content makes every game better. There is a big variety of nice user created maps and mods.
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 Very poorly optimized
When there's a lot going on, it runs bad even on the best latest systems.
Con Gameplay can be quite hectic
Some missions can require the player to control up to 135 units at once, on three separate fronts , which can be difficult to manage. While not completely unmanageable, this is something to consider for those that want something a bit more simplistic out of their RTS.
Con Poor quality cutscenes
The cutscenes, while not animated with the in game engine, look pretty abysmal. The animation and graphical quality of each cutscene is immersion-breaking and can take the player out of the game in an instant.
Con Flame weapons feel over powered
When facing off against units or vehicles that use flame weapons, infantry units can be killed almost immediately. The sheer attack speed and ferocity of these flame-based weapons can reduce a player's fighting force to zero. This is especially notable with vehicles that use flamethrowers, as they can roll in from the Fog of War and overwhelm infantry in an instant, leaving players with the feeling that these weapons are overpowered.
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.