Dark Souls III: The Ringed City Review (Reshi)
This somewhat hurts to write.
While I recommend the Ringed City overall, particularly for having a wonderful final boss that acts as a magnificent way to close out this wonderful trilogy and areas that harken back to the strengths of all three games, I find there's no denying that the Ringed City also contains some of the most frustrating design of the series, and recalls bad moments from each game.
Without getting too hard into spoilers, facing off areas with lethal practically one shot traps, way too many health spongey enemies with specific and hard to figure out weaknesses, areas where you have to dodge the fire or you just die, and confusing and messy, "how are you even supposed to figure this out?!" puzzles recalls some of the more poorly designed areas of the trilogy. People may joke and rage about those horrible 'poison swamps' FromSoft are so fond of, but nothing makes me wonder how FromSoft can produce such an otherwise fantastically designed game as having a puzzle - required to complete to finish an NPC's quest - having as its only hint a three letter phrase that means absolutely nothing, and requires obscure knowledge about a mostly useless item to complete.
Or a specific spell, but well - what are Havel's supposed to do, respec?!
But that is focusing too much on the flaws. With two fantastically designed bosses - some of the best in the game and dare I say, the series, and one that recalls an old, favourite mechanic (and one that's best not spoken about, least the frustration poors out) and two lovingly designed and fascinating areas, the Ringed City is a good ending to a masterful series.
It's just unfortunate that this couldn't quite be the Atorious of the Abyss it could have been.