I’ve been meaning to play Dark Souls III for a few months now. I got it in the March Humble Monthly.
I’m pretty burned out on Darkest Dungeon. I’ve put in over 50 hours on GOG in just over a week. I’d like something else to really “get into” for a while.
My question is just what the title says. Is it ok to jump right into Dark Souls III without playing the first two?
It’s ok; story wise you will miss a couple things, but as things go with these games, the story you get depends a lot of the attention you put on it, if you played DS1 and didn’t put attention to the details you won’t get much out of the 3rth one, on the other hand, you will miss out a lot of little details as you play.
IF you wanna see a playthrough, I’d recommend Dan’s Sidequest series from Extra Credits, he plays mostly blindly through the entire series.
With DS2, that game is meant to be in some other land, you won’t miss much out of it besides the odd detail here and there.
PS: I have it on console, and @Rilover has it on pc I think, so if you get stuck…
It’s fine to play it in reverse order, but I can’t stress enough that the first one is the best.
NEVER EVER SPOIL THE GAME FOR YOURSELF! Go blindly and never look at playthroughs, guides or whatever. Dark Souls series is only good when you discover things for yourself. Enjoy.
Although I agree, that’s not necessarily true, these games screw with you on more than one occasion to the point where is not fair that you got killed just because you didn’t know.
I’ve met a couple people who just left the game because it was plain unfair in some instances, some are ok with that, some others don’t.
I screw myself over in some occasions by using items, joining covenants and who knows what else without knowing or assuming things will be some way instead of other, some of which were permanent changes.
Also, some just don’t have the chance to play the other games anytime soon, and you do miss on some cool “Aha!” moments if you haven’t played the others, hence my comment on a playthrough.
yes its okay, its the best one in my opinion.
I really don’t want to delve a lot into the new casual generation playing “unforgiving” games like they were made 20 years ago, but … DS is rarely unforgiving and there are a lot of tells before something bad is going to happen.
Observation is huge part of the game and that’s why it’s so good in the end. I can’t even say it’s hard at all in the real sense of the word, because you kinda lose nothing when you make a mistake and you just have to try again, compared to a lot of really unforgiving games where you start from the beginning over and over. The regular difficulty with which the game starts was made in the last minute, because of publisher pressure. The intended difficulty was actually NG+1.
Probably the ppl that left the game were unwilling to learn basic mechanics and pay a bit of attention. It’s funny 'cuz I have like 15 pending invitations in steam constantly, because of such ppl trying to play PvP in DS1 without putting any effort in whatever, but it’s better to go on salt swearing spree to the guy you lose to constantly, I guess.
I’m outright saying without a single doubt - someone is butchering the game for what it is when he isn’t playing it blindly for the first time.
If you play the games in reverse order, you will get the “Aha!” moments in the older games, because it’s just plain going back in time… I know a lot of ppl that played through the series from 3 to 1 and they are hooked with the story about this universe, which is open to personal interpretations in the end. That’s how and why Miyazaki made it, based on his bad english when he was in high school reading medieval story novels and fantasy. He loved them because he didn’t understand much but imagined most of it.
if you want all the tasty lore and want to know what people mean when they speak to you you don’t even need to play the games, just go watch all the videos about it on youtube, I want as many people as possible to enjoy dark souls so off you go ashen one!
If you call casual generation people between their mid 30’s or 40’s with years of gaming behind them…
I’m not talking about the game being unforgiving, in a lot of instances is plain unfair to new players, I knew people that have left way after that boss in Anor Londo because the game screw with them in some way or another.
There’s also the detail that some just don’t have it in them to just keep trying over and over, some aren’t just good enough and don’t have the time to put into the game to be at a decent level, I had boss battles that should feel like a joy after I finally finish them and yet I just get annoyed at the game for putting that on my way to the point where it feels that it was more luck rater than skill that won that battle, and I can’t even imagine what people with a short fuse would be like after the ordeal.
I would argue that watching someone play it for the first time with no background whatsoever will net you more or less the same experience, you may not be in control of it, but that person does not have any experience either, and some prefer this just for the simple reason of not getting stressed over a game, some just like the lore and imagery and want nothing to do with the combat and such.
You are right that the order of the games doesn’t really matter, but since DS3 build over the others, it really affects the way your experience certain things, it is really a matter of choice none the less, so you can start with any game in the series.
You really don’t see the flaw in this? The game is made with clear tells and you need to pay attention to them. Boss battles are probably the most important example, because the bosses have pretty clear tells of what attack they are going to perform and how the game works is that you are bound to die until you learn all of the attacks. It wasn’t luck - it was just lack of experience with the said boss. Without trying over and over you can’t learn the enemy attacks and in the end… you aren’t going to get experienced in the said fight.
Every person experienced with Demon Souls suffered in Dark Souls 1 when it got released and etc. I can show you plenty of youtube vids of known Souls players getting their assess whooped by the next game when they tried it for the first time. Knowing the basic flow of those particular games helps ofc, but when you encounter something new you are bound to die at least few times until you learn how it behaves. Being good on one of those games doesn’t change a lot in how you will perform in the next one or the previous one. I had worse experience in Dark Souls 3 for instance, when I have like 800 hours in the first one. Some boss battles were just not in my comfort zone, but with a bit of a learning now I can kill them probably in 2-3 tries despite the fact I haven’t played in a year plus, but I just memorized their move set options from the tough fights I got.
Going blindly is the best thing one can do in dark souls, I would pay whatever to get my memory erased so I can experience everything again so are all of my friends, even the ones with 2-3k hours of playtime. If you don’t trust me ask @Rilover. I didn’t spoiled single thing for him in his journey and he is really grateful and never hesitated for an advice. It’s shame he is in university session right now 
Thanks @harith you should have left the post. I’m glad there wasn’t much more actually! 
I’d definitely recommend that you play the first one at some point, but the series doesn’t need to be played in order. DS3’s story is a continuation of DS1’s, but the story was never really the focus of the games, in my opinion. You might miss out on a few nods to the original game, but the third is still a good place to start, especially with the vastly improved combat.
Do you realize not everyone has the time? quite literally. Some of my friends have at most an hour per week to put in gaming, and that’s just not enough to go through the game, I myself don’t have that much time
And I’m not saying the game itself is unfair, but there’s a difference with being observant and having that first encounter with that dragon in DS1, there are many situations in these games that when you are first put through can make you feel cheated, sure, once you know about them you can see them coming but until then? and there are even situations when even knowing what it’s coming there’s nothing you can do, there were moments on my first playthrough where despite me being careful got screw over precisely for being careful.
I know you have to learn patterns in a boss fight, I know them, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to do something about it. One battle comes to mind, a lot of people put this as the best designed battle over the series, totally disregarding the RNG that is involved in it, sure you can bait them, but as to when they leave an opening is often up to them, they ask you to bait and wait, in a game that has reliably taught you to bait and punish, and all because they exploit a combat system that was made for 1v1 combat, you do have to put a lot of time into these games, time that not many have.
Never said it wasn’t, but that’s your approach to it, some just don’t care that much and they are OK with it, I had someone come and watch me play Bloodborne because she liked the world while being totally uninterested in the combat, and that’s fine, not everyone would get their enjoyment of something in the same way I would like.
Edit: as per my point of feeling more like luck than skill, I refer to the fact that sometimes the bosses just throw the moves you can deal with easily over and over instead of their regular behavior, I once had Ornstein just standing there for a good time for no apparent reason.
I understand your points and opinion… I really do, but I can’t agree about a single thing at all.
If you don’t have the time to play the game as it’s intended (I will say it, because no one else will) I beg you to not try and spoil the experience for other potential players. Such attitude leads to cheating in MP titles to say the least. If he decides to look on walkthroughs or something for whatever reason it’s up to him in the end. At the same time he will be nullifying the end game result ofc, and being unable to finish a game on his own and thus making me ask the question why even bother then in the first place? Achievements? Fun?! Where’s the fun when you know what’s going to happen and the best way to deal with it. Great way to butcher a game for sure.
If bosses didn’t mixed their attacks it would have been same fight over and over. You can’t really try to tell me a scripted fight is what you want! I pretty well know to which fight you refer to and this fight isn’t the hardest at all. It’s just at the 40% point of the game and you are forced to throw everything you have learned so far together or suffer. It’s not imbalanced at all… Actually it’s the first step to prep you to what’s up in the late game.
You either try and learn or you die … it’s simple as that. This isn’t RNG game and if someone is struggling he will go look at stuff willingly. No need to try and spoil it in the first place and just blasting out that idea right from the bat.
Yes the story of the games is generally hidden away from the main game play so you can complete all the games with almost no clue to what is happening story wise.
I think you missed the IF I put on my first post, I never told him go and watch this or go and do that before you play, I clearly stated if he wanted to as an option, and I didn’t recommend a walkthrough but a first playthrough, and how does this lead to cheating exactly? there’s a difference between wanting to know what the game is going to throw at you and wanting to screw someone over, and I only put it there as an option over the table, I’m not going to tell someone how he/she should play a game, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna give them options.
I’ve finished these games multiple times already, and I played as intended, whatever that’s supposed to mean, the game doesn’t tell you this is right or wrong, you are just supposed to go and see what happens, which is a BS proposal from the get-go; don’t get me wrong, I love these games, they are amongst my favorites, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna overlook their fails or pass them as design choices.
As I said, some just care about the story, not the action in between, and that’s their fun, I’m not gonna blame them for that, the souls series have a good underlying story, that many players don’t give a crap about, the same players screaming “git gud or get out”, and you don’t see them getting accused of it.
The thing with bosses I talk about is that sometimes they go full power on you and you try and try just for the boss to suddenly go easy on you for no reason, I felt cheated because I bothered to learn and practice just for the bastard to suddenly be easy peasy, not in like you got skills but in like my AI went goofed this time.
I’ve never said that battle was the hardest on the game, just that it is hard, but due to its exploits on the player, and this, by the way, is not the only boss to do that, but this is the only one where I have to wait and see, something that the game didn’t teach me till then and I only did then and nowhere else.
Is the same with me for you really, no offense.
I fairly recently started playing the game myself and this is my first dark souls game and although I have seen a lot of DS1 and some of DS2 I am going into DS3 almost entirely blind. So far I can’t say there’s been anything in this game that I’ve felt depended on or tied back to the other games.
I don’t think there’s much reason at all to hold off on DS3 until you’ve played the others. Playing games blind is always the best option but now and then there ARE going to be a thing or two that you wish to know about where the game just isn’t forthcoming with you and blind decision making has never been a favourite of mine. In these situations I’d recommend you ask someone for the bare minimum of that info instead of looking it up online, since doing that will almost certainly lead you into finding out too much.
The Rules of Dark Souls
1st RULE: You do not talk about Dark Souls.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about Dark Souls
3rd RULE: If someone doesn’t “git gud” or goes limp, taps out the fight is over.
4th RULE: Only two guys to a fight.
5th RULE: One fight at a time.
6th RULE: No bows, no magic
7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.
8th RULE: If this is your first night at Dark Souls, you WILL die
why delete this post? it’s informative, cool, and funny
i don’t know, thought it might just be “too” silly/not fitting in with the chatter and its direction 
but silliness is what we’re all about, and it’s exactly what this thread might need right now after such a hefty discussion (a discussion which i found quite interesting and informative btw)
Is just plain incorrect though, you can and will be invaded by 2 people and they definitely will try to get you into several fights since enemies in your world don’t fight them. They’re not looking for a fair fight.