The same line of thinking applies to the first boss as well, he doesn't rip off his damn arm to club you with it, he grows a new one which is a much more sensible option. While the first boss is a great introductory fight, it does have one rather annoying issue, the fact that you can't see diddly-squat when he goes full-blown monster mode and cowers the entire screen in shadowy snakes of doom. Even the very beginning of the entire game, the ~20 minute long tutorial area, contains three challenging fights that will mercilessly beat down even the most veteran of knights. The first one of these you'll probably encounter is the big daddy of all crystal lizards, a veritable monstrosity that's filled with righteous rage for all of the lizards that perished so that our swords may remain shiny, and unlike the Ogres in Dark Souls 2, its a lot harder to cheese these guys given their varied move set. If you are worried that Dark Souls 3 might be going soft on its players given that it has become a gigantic franchise over the last few years, your concerns are thankfully unfounded as Dark Souls 3 is the most brutal Souls game yet. : You can find my detailed Dark Souls 3 review by heading over here.

For those of you that are purely interested in the analysis, you can skip to that point by pressing here. So here are my current thoughts on Dark Souls 3, from the perspective of someone that has spent far, far too much time playing the Souls series, as well as an analysis of the PC version and its technical qualities.

My initial plan was to first finish Dark Souls 3 and then do a proper review, but after spending around 6 hours getting stabbed, chomped on, and thrown off every scenic vista Lothric can provide I've come to realize that I really need to a share a bit of my enthusiasm, or I might just burst.

Dark souls 3 manual attack aiming