Dark Souls III: The Ringed City Review (SpudWagon)
This would be a very thumbs in the middle piece of content for me.
The Ringed City feels like the culmination of souls in a way that's clearly intended. It's almost a "greatest hits" of different elements of the previous games providing you with a reminder of all the different elements of previous games. I say that but for all the elements that reminded me of the things I enjoyed there's arguably just as much that reminds me of the stuff I don't really care for. Boring gank sections aplenty, a couple "wait your turn to move" sections that zone me out mentally, another poison swamp that I get no enjoyment out of being in, and a few other elements that are more nuisances combined than out right negatives.
Thats not to say Ringed City is completely negative obviously. I do think that with the exception of one boss, the bosses in this DLC are quite good. The final one is one that's been talked about to death and it's for good reason! I am partial to the the boss fight after the DLC's poison swamp, though I do think some more tuning should have gone into it. The Ringed City itself is also one of my favourite looking environments in the game wholesale and I wish more of the DLC was actually spent in it and exploring it, you spend most of the time on its outskirts or in it's walls and it's almost a shame to burn an environment that visually stunning on "walk through these tunnels and swamps", I also love some of the items you get in this DLC, the ring upgrades are nice but I enjoy the weapons, equipment and spells found just as much. This DLC provides a weapon that's a fan favourite for people who use glitches like the weapon art swapping glitch so if you are into that it's a must have.
Overall, it's another "if you have it, probably play it" and if you don't, probably just buy it on sale. Significantly better than the previous DLC but I would still be hard pressed to recommend it to anyone who didn't really enjoy the game. It is very much made for people who loved their souls/souls 3 experience and if you ended yours on a "Im ready to be done note" then you can probably come back to this at a later date with fresh eyes.
idk, 6.5/10