GorillaJu said:
Again, I don't mind a bit of pandering, or refencing, or inspiration. Hell Dark Souls has Berserk painted all over it, I don't mind
But when half of your equipment, a good chunk of npcs, your overall lore and even some locations are STRAIGHT UP just stuff from previous games put in with litle to no context apart for the sake of reference, then yeah i call it pandering big time and filling in the gaps with superficial fanservice.
Bloodborne comparison doesn't hold up. Yes it's based a lot on lovecraftian horror. But almost a big majority of what you get in bloodborne at least references stuff that builds the lore. You learn about the church. You learn about it's division, it's principal actors who are recurring. Locations are all kinda tied to each other, from Yarnham to Yahargul to Byrgenwerth to Cainhurst. There is referencing and fanservice of course, but there's also an effort of world and story building. Hell even Ludwig's moonlight greatsword, being a reference, still gets a cutscene and it's own little story to set it into this world.
In dark souls 3 it's just here because "Ohey Oceiros is kinda like a mini seath and he had it. Okay cool here you go".
DS3 doesn't have much of it's own story as much as it is Dark Souls 1's story retold with slight variation.
I also want to make clear that I don't intend for Souls/BB type games to just being ultra descriptive or fill in every little gap because like you said, Miyazaki is not like a super great writer. He's inspired by a lot of obvious stuff and he himself has said that writing NPCs for instance has always been his weak point.
I usually accept the world i'm thrown in at face value, because that's also how a lot of japanese-style storytelling works. I won't try to figure out what's outside of Yarnham because it's not important, or where exactly do the great ones come from as much as what's their role and effect on people and the world. Some stuff just "are". Similarily in Dark Souls you just accept how the undead/hollow curse works, that "humanity" in souls 1 is a tangential thing or that phantoms from thep ast and converging lands are a thing.
But the one thing he's good at is world building, and tying the stuff that exists within it together. Which is why Souls 1 was fascinating to me originally because you had all these places and they had their little culture and influence, all tying (mostly) to the central plot of Gwyn and the other lords. And it was more impactful since it was contained in that realm.
Now we have Souls 3 and it has a really interesting premisce: The linking has been going on for a while but stuff is getting fucked. Lords and their realms start to converge to come and rekindle the flame but the lords decide to fuck off for various reasons and so the unkindled are being risen to bring them back to their throne and proceed to link the fire again.
With that you can do freaking amazing stuff, bringing a bunch of new lore from all these "transitory lands" and expanding on the fire and the curse. The scope is definitively bigger but somewhat then you start the game and there's just so much stuff that loops back to DS1 through items, locations and npcs for reference's sake that it undermines the overall setting for me and makes it just a "repeat" for me with little substance. And then what's left of the "new" brings very little in comparison to link it all together to the new setting. Some places and bosses are there just because it felt they to fill in some space, like Carthus and Wolnir for me which are like the most "video gamey" areas of the game. "Here's your catacombs level and here's your giant skeleton boss at the end". Sure there's a bit lore about it but it's so vague and unconsequential that you can ignore it for the most part
And like I said elsewhere, I can't fault the game entirely. After all these games had to come out fast and it's kinda hard to make something again the quality of dark souls 1 and bringing entirely new things to the plate. And again, the game is still freaking awesome. But I criticize what I love and I love souls a lot, so I will admit I hold it to high standards because it has set the bar pretty high in these aspects. My expectations were an actual "sequel" that would expand and tie up some loose ends, something a lot of people wanted when souls 2 was announced (Remember how they said they wanted to expand on the curse and actually ending it...which does eventually happen actually in the dlc..although only for you :V ). A retread is not bad but I do find it weaker. And if you do it, at least make it solid. I said my thing about liking Anor Londo because it was not only a nice surprise but had an explanation (not the best but still) and other things tied to it.
On the other hand, smouldering lake and what remains of Izalith is a huge wasted opportunity and ends up feeling like a hollow experience.
