Since most things have already been said here, I'll concentrate on the most important things. 1. It runs flawlessly out of the box on Windows 10! 2. A custom resolution will not require any mods. Just edit the config files (see forum or other comments for that) and that's it. I'm running it on 1920x1080, no hassle at all! Otherwise: The game is simply stellar. running it again after about 20+ years offers tons of charm, a great story, great voice acting (the German audio is sweet!), great music and simply great atmosphere. 10/10!
As others also said, the add-ons are missing from DS 1 and DS 2. Thus it really feels bare-bones and even though I played DS 1 with LOA 20 years ago, I immediately felt the "notepad-like nature" of the experience. I cannot recommend this experience. As for DS 3, I think it is a nice take on the franchise, but can understand the polarizing nature of it.
I don't have a joystick so I don't know how that would fare, but playing with a controller (it supports my modern Saitek 360 one out of the box but doesn't recognize the triggers or the right stick) I wonder how I managed to play it on the PS1 back in the day. The graphics are very good and look great, but the controls make it really a test of patience. It could seriously use a control patch to make it more twin-stick like and less "direct". Otherwise it is a nice arcade-style game.
This game is not too bad, and the other recensions basically say it all. I have no issues with the graphics or the sound, in these way the game shines just like the predecessor. A rough one is the controls - it has this habit of "buffering" where you can easily unintentionally do a false move if you don't get off the key right in advance. But I can let it slide. Keeping track of the goals, chests etc. is annoying as the game doesn't keep book at all. This is the players job here. I don't like it, but it's just fine. My main complaint with this game is the difficulty. I play on "Easy" on purpose - if I want a challenge, I choose the harder settings. Even on Easy this game has shocking difficulty spikes and has no problem with dropping you into several ice demons that fencing off is tough even with a single one, and some enemies have a tendency to permanently cripple you, poison you etc. so if you forgot to brew potions using the sparse resources, it can get very frustrating easily. Even if you take every bit of experience the game gives you, it is very, very tough. While the first installation had a brilliant focus on gameplay, "story" and challenges, here it appears that the devs put all ideas they had and crammed them into every corner of the "open" world. I'm not sure what the purpose is to have "challenges" at every corner, where most of them aren't even half tricky at all, so to me they seem like level fillers. I'm "only" six hours in so maybe the game gets fairer after that, but so far I can't justify anything more than two stars.
