Hi guys! Today I will talk about Dark Souls 3 and Code Vein. I will do a comparison between them and I will let you be the judge of which game is better. First I will talk about the storyline of those 2 games, then I will talk about the difference or similarities in their gameplay, and lastly, I will compare the visuals and tell you my final thoughts. Now let’s begin.
Table of Contents
Storyline
First let’s talk about the storytelling of Dark Souls 3.
Dark Souls 3 storytelling is very confusing, to say the least. I swear before I watched a video on YouTube explaining the story of Dark Souls 3, I had no idea what the story was about or why I did the things I did in the game.
Now to be fair I haven’t played the other Dark Souls games, I have only played Dark Souls 3 but I can’t really use this as an excuse for Dark Souls 3 since I have played other sequels of games that I hadn’t played the original but I still understood what was going on and why.
From what I read in Dark Souls 3 you are supposed to learn the story through reading item descriptions and dialogue from NPCs and you still only learned half, the other half is guessing and theorizing.
I can respect their decision to write a game’s story that way but I can’t say that I am a fan of it.
I prefer to play a game like watching a movie with dialogue and cinematics, the game can still have other story things hinted through item descriptions, but I want to understand the story through watching cinematics and through dialogues.
I prefer the “show don’t tell” approach and Dark Souls 3 prefers the “tell don’t show” approach.
As for Code Vein. He has the typical storytelling approach. It tells the story through dialogues and cinematics and you don’t have any difficulty understanding what’s going on and why.
Both stories are good in their own way and I believe this comes down to personal preference. If you want to discover the story by finding items and reading their descriptions and talking to NPCs then Dark Souls 3 is the game for you.
If you want to enjoy the story through cinematics and voiced dialogue then go with Code Vein.
Gameplay
In Dark Souls 3 you have access to a variety of weapons but because of that, the enemies couldn’t be optimized for fights against a specific weapon so they have a more neutral approach.
Code Vein has a lot of similarities with Dark Souls 3 in this aspect as it was inspired by it. I have to say both games feel the same when it comes to melee combat. Code Vein has less variety when it comes to weapons. The weapons that are available to you in Code Vein aren’t as unique as the weapons in Dark Souls 3.
Furthermore, Code Vein takes some steps in the right direction taking the Dark Souls formula a step further. The thing that I am talking about is the minimap.
Now before you say this is a thing for casuals and all that bs, listen to me.
I have finished Sekiro 13 times and 4 of those I beat it in the hardest possible settings meaning ng+7 with demon bell active and without Kuro’s charm so I believe I can consider myself a hardcore player.
The reason that I believe that adding a minimap to Dark Souls formula is a step in the right direction that I don’t like exploring areas to find all the items that I might need in the future. I find it boring and a waste of time.
Some areas in Dark Souls games also feel like mazes and it takes a lot of time to make sure you found every item. Having a minimap that shows with marking the areas that you visited saves a whole lot of time.
Some of you might not have jobs or other things to do but for people that don’t have a lot of hours in a day to play games, it helps them save time from finding items or exploring the area in general because some areas make it very difficult to even find out where you should go.
As for the bosses that you will face in those 2 games I have to say that both games have interesting bosses that you will enjoy fighting. Sometimes maybe you will hate the experience of fighting them because of how many times they killed you.
I don’t believe both games did a good job in the bosses department and neither one surpasses the other when it comes to bosses.
Lastly, let’s talk about difficulty. In both games, your build and class plays an important role in how difficult you will find the enemies but in general, I believe both games offer the same challenge.
I know many people might disagree with me but that’s my honest opinion.
Both games give you the optinion to play Co-Op too so you can enjoy playing with friends if you want to.
One thing that Dark Souls 3 has and Code Vein hasn’t is PvP, but since it’s peer-to-peer the connection depends on the distance between you and the person you face and some times you will have a lot of lag.
I personally hated the PvP cause of the lag. I gave up on it after 20 games or so.
Visuals
When it comes to visuals the best choice is Code Vein. I know that it came 3 years after Dark Souls 3 but it’s just how it is.
Dark Souls 3 looks good too but Code Vein just looks better.
An important part of the visuals is the customizations a game offers when it comes to character appearance. In that aspect Code Vein wins easily. It has the best character creation system I have ever seen in a game.
The only negative thing is that Code Vein didn’t improve upon the Dark Souls formula in this aspect too, meaning that there isn’t any clothes transmogrification system. This system would make the game even better for me since you might like the stats of some blood veil(armor’s name in Code Vein), but if you don’t like the appearance, without transmogrification, you are stuck with that appearance.
Final Thoughts
Code Vein and Dark Souls 3 have a lot of similarities and it might be hard to decide which of these 2 games to choose. I don’t think that you should decide based on gameplay because there is little difference in that.
The decision for me comes down to what storytelling you prefer. I personally loved the story of Code Vein and if I had to choose one of the 2 games right now I would choose Code Vein just for the story.
As I said don’t expect much difference when It comes to gameplay. Sure the classes work a little different in each game but when it comes down to fighting enemies both games feel the same.
This is it, guys. I hope you found the article informative and that I helped you decide which is the best game for you.
Write in the comments below if you agree or disagree with what I said and if you think I forgot something. See ya in the next article.
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